


Mnemosyne

by JED1



Series: Miraculous Tales [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Action, Cliffhangers still inbound, Drama, Female-Pronoun-Nooroo, For once it isn't Chat who gets hit by the Akuma of the day, Gen, UA, Universe Alterations, Wee bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 02:50:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 33,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8039542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JED1/pseuds/JED1
Summary: Marinette pulled at the black spotted red suit that she was wearing, before finally giving up with a wince.  It was obvious that whatever she was wearing, it wasn’t coming off.  She wrapped her arms around her chest as she looked around the office building she’d landed in.  The lights flickered again, then suddenly cut off, leaving the afternoon sun streaming through the window she’d fallen through as the only light source.“Where are you, ma chérie…” A voice sang, soft and lilting.  A woman with auburn hair wearing green robes that flowed like ink in water floated to the window.  Marinette backed up, stopping as her back hit a pllar.  The woman smiled, a purple glowing outline like a stylized butterfly glowing around her face as she advanced, backlit by the afternoon sun.“Just give me your earrings, ma chérie, and all will be-”Glass shattered behind Marinette and a shadow leapt past her, tackling the floating woman to the floor.  Their momentum flipped them over and the person- boy?- in the black leather suit lashed out with both feet, sending the woman out the window.  The shadow spun to face her and Marinette screamed.Those were not human eyes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
>  [Original Akuma](https://meggymoohoo.tumblr.com/post/142210483470/what-if-the-akumas-kept-the-appearance-of-the) design a commission from the ever amazing [Meggymoohoo!](http://meggymoohoo.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a few terms/concepts that are canon in my fanfic series that are NOT canon in the main show... such as akumas having a different appearance after a Champion accepts Papillon's deal, the use of 'Miraculous Restoration' instead of Miraculous Ladybug, the kwamis have a slightly different look from canon, and the concept of a 'glamour' that helps protect the identities of Miraculous Chosen.  
> To see what these important 'AU from canon, but canon in this series' facts are please click [here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8189071/chapters/25892577)  
> To see what my Statute of Limitations on Spoiler Warnings ( _the amount of time that I will post Spoiler Warnings at the start of chapters/in comments_ ) as well as seeing a list of Fandom Terminology that I use in my tags, notes and comments, please click [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8189071/chapters/19397227).  
> ~~~~~~  
> So in Chapter 16 of this fic, I held a vote to see what (if anything) I should change the name of the 'Miraculous Ladybug' ability to.  
> Miraculous Restoration won by a LANDSLIDE and thus it is what you will see from now on in this fic and the rest of the series.

As days went, this one was one of the worst. Marinette fiddled with her tablet, tapping the pen against it as she tried to pay attention ( _honestly, she really was trying_ ) to Mademoiselle Bustier, but the words just weren’t sticking in her head long enough for her to write them down.

She glanced up through her lashes at Adrien again before looking at Alya. Alya didn’t notice, as she was staring at Adrien as well, Alya’s jaw tight, biting her lip. It was a relief when lunch swung around. Marinette grabbed Alya’s arm and dragged her to the library, ignoring Alya’s protests. Once they were in the library, she let go of Alya and met her best friend’s eyes… and tried not to cry. “Alya, what… what happened? You never said that you ran into Adrien last night and you HUGGED him, tackled him really, and you’re acting weird, and-“ 

“Marinette.” Alya caught her shoulders. “Hey. Adrien’s fine. I’m fine. I just… got a bit of a scare last night and was a little too enthusiastic because… nightmares, y’know?” seeing Marinette’s wobbling lip, she decided to try for humor. “Granted, that was a nice hug, I wonder if Adrien has an opening in the girlfrien-“ 

“Don’t you dare!” Marinette yelped, smacking Alya on the shoulder, earning a cackle from her friend. 

“I’m joking, I’m joking! Nino’s more my type anyway!” 

Marinette eyed her for a moment, then sighed, shoulders relaxing. “So… Chat Noir and you… kept Adrien safe? Where did you even run into him?” she didn’t remember seeing Adrien on the street near her house, or anyone at all, actually. Not that she could mention THAT part. 

Alya rubbed the back of her neck. “Um. Yeah. It was just before he- Chat Noir- got us away from Madame Mort. He was helping people get away.” Alya offered a small laugh. “Middle of an akuma attack and he saving people, what even.” 

That… well, she hadn’t exactly looked around much there… she’d just gotten Madame Mort tangled up and then had rushed to save the falling Chat Noir and Alya. Her sweet Adrien had been right there and being wonderful and heroic and she hadn’t even KNOWN it. …this was the worst day. 

Alya pulled her into a quick hug. “So, am I forgiven for tackle-hugging your sun of love?” 

Marinette giggled and nodded. “Do you want to tell me about what happened? …Where’s your phone anyway?” 

Alya’s face fell, her eyes going wide as realization hit her. 

“I forgot to get it… it’s still at your house! …Your parents are gonna KILL me when they find out I stole all the cheese!” 

“What WAS with all the cheese? And why the cream?” Marinette asked. 

Alya stared at her. 

“What?” 

“…How do you know about the cream?” 

“Because it was in my room?” 

“But the Miraculous Restoration should have fixed it…” 

“Yeah it… um. Didn’t get my room for some reason. I had to sleep on the couch last night because of all the glass, I’m going to clean it up tonight.” And she STILL had yet to get a satisfactory answer out of Tikki about why her room hadn’t been fixed up. ‘ _Sometimes the Restoration misses small things, just like sometimes it fixes things that aren’t directly connected to the Akuma_ ’ wasn’t good enough. 

Alya patted her back, looking rueful. “Sorry, girl. I’d offer to come help clean up, but I’ve got that make-up project for Physics and I have GOT to finish it before Monday or I’m gonna flunk.” She tilted her head, then smiled as an idea came to her. Well… SHE couldn’t help Marinette clean up… but she was pretty sure she COULD talk someone else into it. …Maybe only if he had the mask on, because how to explain Adrien randomly showing up to help Marinette clean up, but... Alya giggled. Operation: Get Mari and Adrien Together was one of her long running projects! And now she could work on the Adrien side of the equation! VICTORY WOULD BE HERS! 

Marinette smiled. “No, it’s okay. It shouldn’t take me TOO long to clean up, even on my own.” Alya started walking and Marinette kept pace. “So… what DID happen?” 

Alya rubbed the back of her neck. “Well… remember how I was telling you about how I helped Chat Noir last night and he’d gotten hurt?” 

Marinette nodded. 

“Sooooo… I kinda sorta used the key you accidentally told me about to break into your place because you weren’t answering your phone and I wanted to make sure you were okay-” Alya broke off at the squeak that got from Marinette. “I was gonna tell you to hide it somewhere else after! I just wanted to CHECK on you! Why weren’t you answering your phone anyway and where WERE you?” 

“I… I went out to dinner with my parents and I left my phone at home, in the bakery’s kitchen. Heh?” 

“Oh, well, I’m glad you were okay then. So that’s why I was up in your room… when I saw Ladybug swing into the park, carrying Chat Noir, and hide. Madame Mort- the person who got Akumatized? –followed them a second or two later and started to head for where they were hiding so I… pretended to be livestreaming and shouted that I could see Ladybug and Chat Noir heading for the Eiffel Tower. It worked too! Madame Mort SHOT OFF, and Ladybug came up into your room to hide before Madame Mort came back and she left to lead her off. …I can’t explain the cheese and cream part, because… well, I promised? ” 

Marinette poked Alya’s shoulder. “And theeeeeeeeeeen?” 

Alya’s smile vanished and she gulped. “And then Chat Noir’s heart stopped and I have never been so glad to know CPR in my life.” 

Marinette threw her arms around Alya and hugged her as tightly as she could. “I’m sorry.” 

Alya hugged Marinette back, before finally taking a deep breath. “So. Chat woke… mostly up after- after that, and then Madame Mort was back AGAIN so we snuck out, and then almost got caught, and then Ladybug saved us even though we landed in the Seine and I hid under the Pont des Arts until I saw the ladybugs fixing everything and… well, then I went home.” 

Marinette kept hugging Alya until she felt her friend shift to move away. She let go and started to turn… and paused as she saw Nino outside the Principal’s office, pacing wildly, his hat crushed in one hand. 

“Oh that’s not good,” Alya muttered and took off running towards Nino, Marinette right on her heels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so in warning... I actually ended up having a lot I needed to cover before I could get to the actual Akuma-of-the-day... As in I've already hit 15k words and have only JUST gotten to the point where I'm sending the duo out on patrol to finally run into Mnemosyne.
> 
> ...Heh?


	2. Chapter 2

Marinette and Alya skidded to a stop by the door, and Marinette opened her mouth to ask Nino what was wrong when a man’s voice suddenly cracked like ice from inside the Principal’s office. “I do not care if you wish to continue coming here, Adrien! Given recent events and the high number of Akuma attacks that occur here, it is obvious that you are not safe, nor are you-“

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh NOOOOO… 

“His PÈRE came in,” Nino groaned. “In PERSON. They’ve been in there since the start of lunch break and his Père’s already threatened to SUE the school because of how often Akuma attacks happen here and that Adrien isn’t ‘keeping up with his studies’ and he’s gonna pull Adrien out of school-“ 

Adrien was being pulled out of school. She’d never be with her sweet Adrien again or sit behind him and they’d never get married and have three kids or a dog or the two cats or any hamsters at all and she’d only see him in photographs and never HEAR his voice again- 

Alya was suddenly shaking her, jarring her back to the moment. “You still have Adrien’s schedule memorized, right?!” The fact that Alya looked as panicked as Marinette felt did NOT help Marinette calm down in the slightest. “Marinette!” 

Adrien’s… schedule? Why would- Alya shook her again and Marinette nodded. Of COURSE she had Adrien’s schedule memori- 

“What was he scheduled to be doing last night! Marinette, this is my fault, I gotta fix it! Why was he out at sunset!?” 

“Sunset photoshoot,” Nino suddenly offered, grabbing for his phone. “It got rescheduled to a sunRISE shoot this morning!” 

Marinette nodded. “At Notre Dame. He had a sunset photoshoot for the new Agreste line of business suits at sunset. He would have left to get there about an hour or two before sunset so they could set up and he could get into whatever he was supposed to be modeling.” 

Alya spun on her heel and ran into the Principal’s office, Marinette and Nino dragged along in her wake as Alya ran right past Adrian and up to Gabriel Agreste, who was turning to stare in shock at the intrusion. 

“Photoshoot! He was only in danger because of the PHOTOSHOOT!” Mr. Agreste seemed to freeze for one moment at that and the dark-suited woman, Natalie if Marinette remembered correctly, beside him raised both eyebrows. Alya started talking before the shock could change back to anger. “I know a lot of Akuma attacks happen at our school but the attacks are… totally random and have happened at other places more than here, and Adrien wasn’t at school or GOING to school or anything, he was going to the sunset photoshoot at Notre Dame for your new suit line when he… they… ran into Madame Mort.” 

“Yeah and… Adrien told me about how the G… his bodyguard pushed him behind the car so he’d be safe, even though Natalie and the Ggggguuuuard got hurt protecting him!” Nino added on quickly. 

“…Is this true, Adrien?” Mr. Agreste asked, eyes turning to his son. Marinette followed his gaze and bit her tongue to keep from gasping. Adrien was staring at the floor, hands clasped behind his back, fingers twisting and twining, his eyes glassy and disturbing blank, and Marinette unconsciously edged to stand next to him, worried that he was about to faint. 

“Adrien.” 

Adrien’s shoulders hunched, then straightened. “Yes, Père. Madame Mort came out of nowhere as we were getting out of the limousine. Natalie was drained and that’s when I was pushed behind the car. They both… they both kept me safe. You shouldn’t… shouldn’t be angry with them, they-” 

“I am not, and was not, angry at them at any point, Adrien,” Mr. Agreste stated flatly, making Adrien flinch. 

Behind Mr. Agreste, Natalie’s eyes widened for a heartbeat, apparently caught off guard by this act of protection… and if the look on Nino’s face was anything to go by… Adrien’s dad HAD been angry at the two adults for ‘not protecting’ Adrien until this very moment. 

Mr. Agreste turned his gaze over to Alya, and Marinette cautiously reached over and slid her hand in between Adrien’s clasped, twisting, hands. His hands stilled instantly and then both clenched onto hers like a lifeline as Alya and Nino worked together to field Mr. Agreste’s questions- accusations really- about where Alya had seen his son and what Adrien had been doing. Marinette knew, vaguely, that she should be hearing angels singing as she danced on cloud nine. She was holding hands with ADRIEN!!!! …but he wasn’t even looking at her, or anyone else really. His gaze was still on the floor, or maybe the floor was just in the way, because he wasn’t focused at all, and Marinette wasn’t certain if he was about to cry, scream or faint. 

“Very well.” 

Marinette snapped back to attention and looked up. Mr. Agreste was studying Adrien with narrowed eyes, and Marinette honestly felt that he wasn’t really SEEING his son, but instead was just… considering. 

“You may continue to attend this collège, Adrien, however I want you to return home when you are not-“ 

Alya drew in a deep breath and started to open her mouth- 

“If I may, sir?” 

Everyone, save Adrien, looked to Natalie with varying degrees of surprise. 

“Yes, Natalie?” 

“I believe that it would be best if you allowed Adrien to keep his current schedule rather than changing it. I’m certain that Adrien will continue to be safe with here at school and with his friends. I have tested Adrien on a bi-weekly basis and he is keeping up with all his studies, on par with where he would be were he still being home-schooled while providing a more… active daily regime then he had at home.” 

“Hmm.” Marinette tightened her grip on Adrien’s hand as Mr. Agreste considered Natalie’s words… and breathed a quiet sigh of relief when the man nodded. “Very well. For the time being, things may remain as they were. Adrien.” 

“Yes, Père?” 

“I expect you to exercise more caution in the future, do not disappoint me.” 

“I won’t, Père. …Thank you.” 

Gabriel Agreste nodded firmly, then turned on his heel and marched out of the Principal’s office. Natalie went to follow in his wake, then paused at the door. Her hands clenched for one moment before she sighed softly. “…Thank you, Adrien.” And then she was gone as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adrien reacts as strongly as he does for a few reasons here. One, he did kinda die and such last night ( _and technically almost died/did die a second time destroying Madame Mort’s glove... I know which it was, but it's you can decide which you think it was. Muhahaha_ ) on top of general SEVERE exhaustion, passing out and beating. Two, he didn’t get much sleep, despite still being very low on energy. Three, modeling take a LOT of mental and physical energy which sent him spiraling back down to near empty again before he even got to school. And finally he’s been standing in the Principal’s office with his father alternating between emotionless-ice and near-shouting for somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes.
> 
> He basically hit the stress-exhaustion event horizon, and it’s quite possible he actually would have fainted if Marinette hadn’t given him the support she did.


	3. Chapter 3

Alya and Nino were moving the moment the door closed, both of them talking at the same time as they herded the still silent Adrien out the door, tossing a ‘we’ll just take him to lunch,’ over their shoulders to the slightly pole-axed looking Principal. Adrien was still clinging to Marinette’s hand like a lifeline, so she just kept pace as Nino put one arm around Adrien’s shoulders and Hurricane Alya cleared a path to the library and got all of them tucked into the most out of the way corner she could find, then got Adrien sitting. She grabbed his shoulders and ducked to be in his line of sight. “Adrien?”

“You okay, Dude?” 

“I’m fine.” 

Nino scowled and looked up, scanning the library with nervous eyes, paying extra attention to the windows for some- 

Oh. 

Oh no. 

Marinette squeezed Adrien’s hand again, because of COURSE Nino was expecting an Akuma, they’d all seen people get Akumatized for far less than this, and Marinette honestly wasn’t certain what she’d do if she ever had to face down an Akumatized Adrien, she didn’t know if Ladybug could handle that at all. 

“No, you’re not, and it’s okay to not be fine, Dude,” Nino insisted, moving around so that he was on Adrien’s other side, bracketing the blond between himself and Marinette. Alya stayed in front of him, holding his shoulders and trying to stay in his line of sight. “Everybody gets hurt and angry sometimes.” 

“‘Everybody’ may but I…” Adrien shrugged. “I know how to compartmentalize, how to keep a layer between me and… everything. Getting worked up about stupid stuff just- it makes it worse so I learned how NOT to. Just… give me a minute and I’ll be okay.” 

Alya was frowning. “Adrien, what exactly are you talking about?” 

Adrien took a deep, slow, breath in and let it out in a rush. “You’ve met my Père.” 

Nino scowled. “Monsieur Harsh himself, yes.” 

“More like Monsieur Ice,” Alya grumbled. 

“Yeah, so he-“ Adrien broke off sharply and took a ragged breath. “…and with modeling you have to be able to… turn it off and step back. Have a thick skin. Emote on cue and make it look real which means… there’s the mask, and then a barrier and then ME.” He offered a shaky laugh. “Which apparently has the benefit of protecting me from Akumas. Yay.” 

Marinette squeezed Adrien’s hands even as Nino dragged his friend sideways into a tight hug. That… really didn’t sound healthy, locking everything away. But maybe he didn’t mean it the way it sounded? And he did seem to be… more himself already. Maybe it’d be okay? 

Adrien sighed and shifted to sit up properly, letting go of Marinette’s hand and running his hands over his face. 

Alya set her jaw and stood up, pointing at Nino. “We’ve got Physical Education next. Go tell Monsieur Haprèle what happened. He's only co-teacher under Monsieur D'Argencourt, but he’s really nice and… he’s really understanding about people needing to… settle for a bit. Marinette, I need you to go with Nino.” 

Marinette jumped. “Me? Why?” 

“Because the only person with better puppy-dog eyes than you is Rose, AND Monsieur Haprèle likes you because you helped him out with fixing his hat and stuff, I mean he gave you two front row seat tickets to his show!” 

Nino was nodding. “That’s a good plan.” He stood up and gently tugged Marinette’s hand. Marinette gulped, wanting to stay with Adrien but Alya had a really good point and… and this would be helping. She glanced at Adrien and got to her feet. This would be helping a lot and she could do this. 

Alya waited until Nino and Marinette had left before she looked back to Adrien. “Plagg, if an Akuma comes, you can stop it, right?” 

Plagg flew out from Adrien’s overshirt. “Ye-“ 

Adrien YELPED, reaching out to catch Plagg with both hands before suddenly freezing and staring at Alya in blank horror. 

Alya blinked at Adrien, Plagg blinked at Alya, and Adrien just offered a very small noise of panic. 

…come to think of it, had Chat Noir actually been conscious or really aware at ANY point when Alya had commented on the fact that she now knew his real name? 

… 

Well, shoot. 

“Um, yeah… I’m totally in the loop now?” And she really needed to TALK to him about that because… well, lots of stuff and there was still a tiny-Alya running around screaming in panic in the back of her head because she didn’t KNOW WHAT TO DO with this information. 

Adrien just offered a slightly more strangled panicked noise. 

“…You were told that you were given CPR, how did you not figure out that that meant that she’d seen you de-transformed, Kid?” Plagg demanded, twisting around in Adrien’s grasp to aim a LOOK at his Chosen. 

“I don’t KNOW! I just- I thought that- and you didn’t SAY anything-“ 

“I didn’t or Alya didn’t?” 

“BOTH OF YOU!” 

Alya reached over and awkwardly patted Adrien’s shoulder. “Sorry, I totally thought you knew that I’d found out. Plagg, you should have TOLD HIM.” 

“Pfffft, this is funnier.” 

“Grapes.” 

“Fiiiiiiiiiiiine.” 

That at least seemed to confuse Adrien out of his panic. “Grapes?” 

“Nothing!” Plagg yelped. “Let’s get back to important matters! Akumas! Yeah, there’s the Glamour that basically keeps Adrien off Papillon’s ‘emotional meltdown’ radar, and as long as I’m separate and not powering him, and have a heads up, I can totally stop them from grabbing the Kid here.” 

Alya heaved a sigh of relief. “Okay. At least we don’t have to worry about a Chat Blanc or something.” Plagg slid out of Adrien’s hands and flew around to land on top of his head. Adrien shifted to sit normally, still in the process of trying to calm down. Alya frowned when Adrien yawned fit to split his jaw. 

“Did you get enough sleep? I mean Nino said your photoshoot got rescheduled AND I saw him sneaking you an energy drink this morning, and on top of that you were literally drained to DEATH last night.” 

Adrien scrubbed his face with both hands. “I dunno. Maybe? …got some sleep at least.” 

Alya huffed. “Okay. We’ve still got an hour left for lunch break, and Monsieur Haprèle’ll let us skip class today since it’ll only be once, SO…” she grabbed his wrists and pulled him to his feet, then over to the corner, then pushed his shoulders until he was sitting. “That’ll get you more than three hours, and we can maybe even talk the next teacher into letting us skip. SLEEP.” 

Adrien stared at her blankly. Alya patted his shoulders. “Seriously, three hours of solid sleep’ll help a ton. Power nap!” She glanced up as she heard the door to the library open. Plagg darted to hide in Adrien’s over-shirt again. “We’ll talk about… Plagg and stuff later, promise. Come to my place after school, we’ll say it’s to help with my Physics project, and we’ll talk. But you’re DROOPING, so just… sleep.” 

“Just lay down and close your eyes, Kid,” Plagg said, poking his head into view and aiming a wink at Alya. “Alya’ll totally fall for it and we can’t talk about rings and leather with Nino and Marinette around anyway.” He zipped back out of sight as the two in question came around the last bookshelf, Nino holding Adrien’s bag as well as his own, and Marinette holding both her and Alya’s bags. 

Nino put his hands on his hips, considering the tableau before raising an eyebrow. “Power nap?” 

“Power nap,” Alya confirmed, snickering when Adrien’s attempt to argue was cut-off by a second massive yawn. 

Nino strolled over and casually shoved Adrien’s shoulder, sending the model sprawling to the floor, then flopped to sit next to him. Alya sat down next to Nino, and after a minute of debate, Marinette crept over to sit on Alya’s free side. A minute of silence, Adrien finally sighed. 

“Fine.” 

He arranged himself on his side, pillowing his head on his arms and closing his eyes. In less than five minutes, he was out, much to Nino’s snickering amusement. Nino dragged his bag over and pulled out his lunch. “You dudes have somethin’ to eat or do you wanna share with me?” 

Alya pulled her own bag over and pulled out the wedge of cheese she’d brought ( _technically for Plagg but she’d make it up to him later_ ). Marinette produced croissants and jam. They traded bits of their meals between each other and soon were happily munching their way through a rather nice meal as they kept watch. 

* * *

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> **Notes** ( _Which were too long for the notes block_ ):  
>  While I have two issues with what Alya does and plan to have her get a bit of a wake-up call and become more grounded then she currently is in show ( _she gets more than a little caught up in knowing the ‘truth’ even when doing so is something her heroes obviously don’t WANT her to push, and she’s put herself in danger several times… Chat sacrifices his weapon TWICE, in as many days, to save her life in Origins and Alya has been nearly killed at least twice –Pharaoh and Timebreaker- because she just HAD to get that pic/film_ ), can I point out that Alya is a freaking FORCE OF NATURE. 
> 
> Of the four that make up the lead group, she is without a doubt the alpha personality. Marinette is retiring, Adrien is shy, and Nino is extremely laid back. We consistently see Alya steamrolling over any and all objections and/or panic from Marinette and doing much the same to Nino as well, esp after they become a couple ( _post Animan_ ). She seems to stall out a little around Adrien, likely because Adrien’s connection to her is ‘Nino’s friend’ and ‘Marinette’s crush’ rather than a more direct connection. ( _We don’t really see Alya and Adrien hanging out in the show, and Alya ships Adrinette SO bloody hard that it’s likely influencing her interactions with Adrien as well_ ). She also acts as a grounding force to Marinette when Marinette gets hyper ( _about Adrien, design and other matters_ ) and Nino when HE gets worked up about stuff… and both of them return the favor and TRY to ground Alya when she gets worked up about things ( _especially her Ladyblog/reporting_ ) 
> 
> She is, fortunately, a kind hearted person and ends up overall being a good counter-example to Chloé. Both are forceful and dominating personalities, but Alya is more caring and does her best for her friends… or at least what she thinks is best ( _and thankfully said views line up with what her friends are happy with more often than not_ ). Which resulted in what happened in this Chapter, of Alya basically steamrolling in and Marinette ( _who short-circuits around Adrien_ ) and Nino basically following her lead… both because freaking Force of Nature and because Alya to all appearances knew what to do and they DIDN’T ( _with Adrien’s father at least-note that once it was getting Adrien out of the Principal’s office, to the library and then bringing him back to himself, Nino is just as active and involved as Alya, he follows her lead with leaving to ask a teacher if they can skip class because he knows that’s a good idea and he trusts Alya to keep an eye on Adrien while he’s away_ ). It’s AMAZING what you can get away with if you act like you know what’s going on/you’re an authority.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh and yes, I was very careful when writing Madame Mort to insure that EVERY TIME Alya said Adrien’s real name and/or said something that showed that she knew Chat=Adrien… Chat was temporarily dead, completely out for the loop, mostly out of it, or out cold. There is no point where he is with it enough to hear/figure out/register what Alya is saying. That was all set up for this moment of ‘oh shoot’ here ^_^


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: small spoiler from the Christmas special about Alya's younger sisters (which we've had mention of a few times already in Season 1). If you want to avoid ALL spoilers, no matter how tiny, please be aware.
> 
> Also, Alya uses the creole word for mom (manman) rather than french as she and family are canonically from Martinique, and most of the population there is french/creole bi-lingual, using creole at home/casual settings and french in public/formal settings, thus Alya using creole when home.

Marinette fussed with her homework, biting the end of her pen as she tried to remember the correct formula for the math problems. She glanced past Alya and Nino, trying to be subtle, to sneak a peek at Adrien. She and Nino had gone to talk to Madame Mendeleiev, but she’d been adamant that they were to come to class. Well, they hadn’t gotten out of two classes, but between the hour they’d had left of lunch and Monsieur Haprèle letting them skip ( _just this one time_ ), Adrien had ended up getting just over three hours of unbroken sleep. Marinette tried to contain the squeak because it was really and totally and completely AMAZING how he was still so HANDSOME like that and almost cute and now that the danger of an Akuma seemed to have passed, she was having a very quiet little meltdown as the realization that SHE’D HELD HANDS WITH ADRIEN finally clicked. Alya kept reaching over and patting Marinette on the head, and Nino was chuckling, so it was possible that she wasn’t doing the best job of being subtle and not squeaking as she thought she was but STILL! Held. Hands. With. Adrien.

Nino’s alarm beeped and he sighed and stuffed his tablet into his backpack, then reached over and shook Adrien’s shoulder. “Dude. Come on, we gotta get to class.” Marinette watched as Adrien shifted, then blinked groggily as he lifted his head off his arms, red lines all over his face from using his arms as a pillow. Nino gave him another shake, and Adrien grumbled and sat up, scrubbing his face with both hands and ohhhhh noooooo he had bed hair and it was all mussed up and somehow still CUTE and Marinette was going to combust soon, she just knew it! 

“Dude, your hair is a bird nest and you’ve got makeup on your shirt insteada your face.” 

Adrien just offered another mumble and aimed a bleary glare at his shirt while he raked his fingers through his hair. He finally gave up with a sigh and slumped against the bookshelf before looking at the other three in silent question. 

“Chemistry,” Alya said, putting her own tablet away. She snickered. “I can see why you said we hadda wake him up now, Nino.” 

Adrien huffed while Nino laughed. “I’ve been EDUCATED by Mondamoiseau Pretty here how it takes time look that nice often enough that I now include primp-time in all scheduled events.” 

“Didn’t complain when I helped you find the right regime and make-up for YOU to use,” Adrien offered, before getting to his feet. 

Nino laughed and got up, then posed when he saw Marinette eying him. “Just enough to enhance my FLAWLESS good looks, Mari.” 

Alya snorted a laugh. “Oh, you’re totally going to have to give me makeup advice now, Agreste. Right, Marinette? …hey, what would you suggest for her, Adrien?” 

Adrien tilted his head, considering Marinette. He opened his mouth to comment, and Marinette squeaked and buried her face in her hands, which seemed to confuse Adrien into silence. 

Nino cackled while Marinette tried not to burst into flames. Adrien picked up his bookbag, nervously fussing with the strap before offering a quiet ‘thank you’ to his friends. Nino threw an arm over Adrien’s shoulder. “It’s all good, Bro. Come on, bathroom, then Chemistry.” Offering a wave to the girls, Nino herded Adrien out. Alya looked down at Marinette and gently poked her shoulder. “Come on you, let’s get to class and shock the world by being there EARLY.” 

“I’m not late THAT often,” Marinette groaned as Alya hauled her up to her feet. 

“Girl.” 

“I’m noooot!” 

“Yeah sure, you keep telling yourself that.” 

“Alyaaaaaaaaa!” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Who knew cheese could be so expensive?” Alya muttered as she stared at the cheese platter she’d just spent most of her allowance on where it sat oh so innocently on her nightstand. At least this way she wouldn’t come into the kitchen to see her siblings‘just snacking’ their way through it like they had with the FIRST sampler plate she’d gotten. Should she have crackers too? Plagg hadn’t asked for any crackers or bread at Marinette’s but he’d been eating as fast as he could to save Adrien’s life at the time so… 

… 

Okay, she’d grab a FEW crackers and bits of bread. And ask her mom what would be best to drink with a lot of cheese, and if there was a certain TYPE of bread or cracker she was supposed to have gotten with the cheese in the first place. 

Marching into the kitchen, Alya dodged her siblings with practiced ease and walked up to hug her mom from behind, ignoring the way she knocked her glasses askew. 

“Good evening, Alya. Did you have a nice day at school?” 

Alya sighed. “No, not really.” She tightened her arms around her mom’s waist, pressing her cheek against her back, mushing her glasses into the side of her face. “Actually, um. Some kinda bad stuff happened to one of my friends and I invited him over, is that okay?” 

Marlena looked over her shoulder at her daughter. “How bad? …There was no mention of an Akuma in the news… Is Nino alright?” 

Alya sighed. “No, it’s not Nino. Nino’s fine, I just texted him to make sure. But I was really worried it was gonna be an Akuma with what happened. Adrien… Adrien Agreste? His Père showed up and threatened to take him out of school and… he had a really bad day yesterday too.” 

“Adrien… he’s your Nino’s friend right? The one Marinette is all a flutter over?” 

“Oh my GOD, Manman, who even says ‘all a flutter’?!” 

“Plenty of people say it.” 

“No, they don’t.” 

“Oh yes. Everyone says it, you are no longer one of the cool people, you just can’t keep up with what all the cool people say. So hopelessly out of date, my poor ex-hip child.” 

“MANMAAAAAAN.” 

Marlena laughed and Alya smiled, closing her eyes for a second as her mom patted her arms. “Yes, it is okay that you invited your friend over. Will you be taking over the dining area?” 

“Um. Actually Adrien’s like really super shy… like, shyer than Marinette, and so I figured we’d go to my room?” 

“…In your room?” Marlene smiled down at Alya. “Do we need to have The Talk?” 

“Oh my GOD, MANMAN, Adrien is just a friend we don’t need to have The TALK, we’ve already had The Talk. You did such a good job on the Talk that I’ve given it to other people by this point!” Alya butted her forehead against her mom’s back. “He’s seriously just a friend… although he might need some hugs, I don’t think he gets a lot of them.” 

Marlena paused for a moment, considering that with a faint frown before finally nodding. “Alright. You both will, however, come out and eat dinner with the family and I will make my two ‘random’ visits so that if you start to feel uncomfortable I can be the ‘mean mom’ if you need me to, okay?” 

Alya nodded. “Thanks, Manman. I don’t know if he’ll be staying till dinner though, he might have to leave early.” She looked up when the doorbell rang. “Oh, that’s gotta be him!” she took off for the front door, vaulting over the couch and dodging the twins. “I GOT IT!!” 

Marlena sighed and shook her head, washing her hands and grabbing a towel as she left the kitchen. She watched as Alya walked past, heading for the hallway, the arm of a slim blond boy tucked under her arm as she towed him along her in her wake. “This is Adrien, Manman, we’ll see you later, bye!” 

The boy managed a brief wave before Alya had him down the hall and out of sight. Marlena chuckled and went back in to finish prepping dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: February 2017
> 
> We finally got to see Alya's house and family in the Christmas Special (December 2016), which was released a few months AFTER this chapter was posted. As Alya's family apparently lives in a single story apartment/flat I had to do a small edit.  
> I originally had Alya's room 'up the stairs', which obviously didn't work given the canon layout we now knew, and so I did an edit to change references to 'the stairs' to 'the hall'  
> ( _Also I forgot how Alya's glasses would have gotten knocked askew/mushed to her face because I've been wearing contacts pretty much exclusively for 20 years and forgot normal little 'glasses' things like that_ )
> 
> Alya also refers to 'the twins', which found out her previously mentioned sisters were in the Christmas special. Also there's a NEW spoiler (as of MArch 2017) about Alya's family although it is not mentioned here. Otis (whom we see at the house in the Xmas special) is not mentioned as I'm trying to figure out what his relationship to Alya IS in canon.


	5. Chapter 5

Alya got Adrien into her room and sighed in relief as she leaned against the now closed door. Then groaned. “I forgot the bread and crackers!”

Adrien looked up from where he was wandering around her room, curiously examining it, poking at her bookcase and eying the powerhouse that was her computer tower. 

“CHEEeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEeeeeeeeeeEEESE!” Plagg darted out of Adrien’s overshirt and within minutes was sitting in the middle of the cheese platter, scarfing it all down. “I LIKE this one, Kid! She knows how to do offerings!” He tossed a series of cheese cubes up and gulped them down in rapid succession. 

Alya eyed Plagg, then looked to Adrien, then back to Plagg as WHAT she was now privy to finally, FINALLY sank in all the way and the part of Alya that had been freaking out in the back of her head took notice of all the new information that was currently available, and put it all together into an actual whole instead of the unconnected piecemeal. Her brain quickly followed this realization with the fact that it could, in fact, run around in circles panicking in places besides the tiny room in the back of her head and pull the rest of her along for the ride. “Oh my god.” 

Plagg stared at her. “What?” 

“OhMyGod.” 

“…What?” 

“OHMY **GOD**.” 

“….What.” 

“OhMyGod You’re a freaking GOD and Adrien is Ch-MMMMPH!!” 

Okay, Adrien was freaking fast as all hell. She hadn’t even seen him MOVE, it was like one second he’d been on the far side of her room, and the next he’d teleported over to clamp a hand over her mouth in an iron grip- his eyes as cold, his face as expressionless, as his fathers. 

“Calm down.” 

“MmmphMMMPH!” 

“No, I’m not letting go till you promise to calm down.” 

“…mmmphMmmMMphMmm?” 

“…Yes, I can figure out what you mean at least.” Adrien raised his eyebrows slightly, but otherwise remained coldly controlled. “You finally started processing the whole thing didn’t you? …Just nod or shake your head.” 

Alya nodded. Okay, could Monsieur Agreste Jr please leave and let Adrien come back because this was actually almost scary. 

Adrien was Chat Noir. Nino’s best friend and Marinette’s border-line-stalker-crush was Chat Noir. It hadn’t really… sunk in until now. The facts had all been there but they’d been disconnected until they lined up and went ‘yeah, remember the fact that-‘ all at once. She KNEW the answer to one of the two biggest secrets she’d ever wanted to know, she should be writing this up on the LadyBlog right now and- 

“You know, it’s probably best you found out about me and not Ladybug. She has family and friends.” 

What? 

“I know you want to post this. You want to know who we are, because ‘people deserve to know’. …Alya. People will DIE if you post this like you did… everything else. Or worse, they’ll just be GONE, and you won’t even know if they’re dead or not, you’d just know it was your fault.” 

Alya gulped, eyes going wide. Adrien took a ragged breath in, blinking back tears, the icy mask cracking and slowly starting to fall. 

“Alya, if everybody knew who we were… Papillon isn’t the only one who would want a Miraculous. Family, friends… anyone who just happened to interact with us semi-regularly. Gone. All of them. Maybe at first it’d just be kidnapping. Then the threats would start when the kidnapping didn’t work. Then the EXAMPLES.” Adrien’s jaw clenched. 

“People do really, REALLY screwed up things when they want something bad enough. I have a BODYGUARD, Alya. A bodyguard who lives in my home, drives me to school then hangs out near-by all day, who sits in on my fencing and Chinese lessons when he isn’t waiting outside, who is probably like a block or two away just chilling in the limo right now, somewhere where he can see your place so he can keep watch. Because there have been kidnapping attempts. So many that I lost count years ago. And one or two times those attempts were successful. I almost never got to be outside of my HOUSE until I started going to school this year. Even when my Maman… even when my Maman was still here, I never went to public school, I couldn’t have friends, and there was ALWAYS someone watching. That isn’t NORMAL. Chloé doesn’t have that, even though her Mère’s gone too. So believe when I say, from experience, that things can get really scary and really BAD and never really get better when there’s someone who WANTS what you have out there waiting for the first weak spot.” 

He smiled without humor. “But like I said. It’s lucky you found out about ME. If you decide to do this anyway? …My Père is my only family. We have the absolute minimum staff. Natalie and the Gorilla can keep themselves safe, and both of them live in the Mansion... and the Mansion is a FORTRESS. I have less than five friends. We have one of the best security systems in the world installed at the Mansion, and my Père patched the holes and weak-points after Jackady. That’s a lot less people to break ties with and have to protect. Ladybug? Ladybug has family. She has friends. Lots of them, probably. Too many to protect. Too many to cut ties with. Just from the little bits she’s let slip by mistake, I can tell you that.” He gulped, expression desperate. “She shouldn’t have to cut ties with anyone. She shouldn’t have to-” 

Alya was staring at him blankly, tears gathering in her eyes. Plagg flew over and hovered beside the two of them, green eyes serious. As serious and grim as they’d been when Chat Noir… Adrien… had been dying in Marinette’s room and all Plagg could do was recharge as fast as he could. 

Adrien had died last night. Alya had saved him, but he had DIED last night. 

She tried to imagine what she’d feel like, knowing that if one of the only people she knew and trusted decided to tell the world something that would bring in… something. Something where she might walk into her house and find Adrien dead again. 

Or her Manman. Or the twins. Or... 

And knowing it was HER FAULT. 

Alya started to cry, and just like that Adrien wasn’t covering her mouth anymore, he wasn’t pinning her against the door, and he wasn’t all icy. Instead he was hugging her close, rocking her, offering apologies, telling her it’d be alright… She clung to him and cried. He somehow got them over to sit on her bed, still whispering apologies as Plagg landed on her shoulder and gently leaned against her cheek, purring faintly. 

It took a long time before she was done. Sniffling, she sat up and couldn’t help but giggle wetly when Adrien offered her a handkerchief ( _seriously, who had HANDKERCHIEFS_ ). He waited, expression open and worried as Alya wiped her face off and took slow breaths until everything felt… settled… in her head again. 

“…I’m sorry for being so mean.” 

“Being honest you mean,” Plagg offered sarcastically from where he was still sitting on Alya’s shoulder. 

“Plagg.” 

“No. No, he’s right,” Alya said, blowing her nose. “I… I mean I know that people aren’t always GOOD but I didn’t… put it together. Papillon already goes for people and messes with their lives and EVERYTHING but it…” 

“There’s a difference between ‘bad things could happen’ and ‘bad things **will** happen to everyone I know and love’,” Adrien said quietly. “I’m still sorry for being mean, I just… panicked.” 

“That was panic?” 

Adrien shrugged. 

“…Do you really think that Papillon would- would kill people?” 

Adrien sighed. “I dunno. Probably. He doesn’t care much about the fact that people die because of Akuma attacks, but the Miraculous Restoration brings people back to life and he knows it… And at the same time he’s never outright KILLED anybody or had one of the Akumatized flat-out kill someone. Kidnapping people or akumatizing them because he knows Ladybug or I know and care about them though? …yeah, that he’d do. …Has done it, even if it was by mistake.” 

Alya frowned. 

“Bubbler. Pharaoh almost sacrificing you. Lady Wifi. Gamer going after Marinette. Antibug. Jakaday going after my Dad. Even Evillustrator, technically, although at least Marinette wasn’t in much, if any, danger that time.” 

Oh SHIT. Yeah, imagine if Papillon had KNOWN… he’d find a way of getting people on purpose… maybe get all of them at once, if he could make somebody like Puppeteer again, and- Wait, what. 

“…Antibug?” 

Adrien shrugged. “Chloé was my first friend… my only friend till I was almost 15. She’s still my friend. I can’t just abandon her.” 

Alya considered that as she scrubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand and sniffled. Considered it as she also made herself slowly go over… everything Adrien had said. 

“You don’t have to be sorry.” 

“Yes, I do.” Adrien kept his arms wrapped around her. “I acted like my PÈRE. …I hate acting like him. …and I was cruel.” 

“I was seriously gonna post about this, Adrien. …not… not till now, really, because first I was just ‘oh thank god he’s alive’ and then I was worried about an Akuma getting you but once I actually could THINK… I was scripting the article in my head right up till you started talking about… that stuff.” Alya sighed and leaned into Adrien’s hug. 

“…I spent the whole day sorting out what to say to you.” 

Alya blinked at him. Plagg snickered and darted off her shoulder to grab the strap of Adrien’s bookbag and dragged it over to the bed. Adrien let go of Alya with one hand to reach in and dig through it, pulling out a binder and opening it to show over a dozen pages of writing, most of it scribbled out. “I wrote out a ton of different speeches and practiced saying it in my head to memorized it, and I was gonna be calm and icy and no panicking or crying or anything. …That, um. That didn’t work. I could only remember bits and pieces of it, and I panicked and scared you and-“ 

…Oh good lord, he babbled? She HAD to get him hooked up with Marinette, they were made for each other. “…Are you angry at me for knowing?” 

“What? NO!” Adrien pulled back to stare at her, eyes wide. “No, Alya, I’m… I’m actually glad you know! It was just the… It was just the LadyBlog and that you might tell EVERYONE that scared me.” 

Plagg huffed. “No one is supposed to know… but I’ve never once actually had a Black Cat who DIDN’T end up with at least a few people who knew. Ladybug’s the same.” He snickered. “* **I** * think our Chosen should tell people they can trust, have a nice little pride to back you up. Tikki thinks no one should ever know. The one marred spot in our marital bliss.” 

“…You’re married?” 

“You are SO gullible, Kid.” 

Adrien shrugged at Plagg, which got him a sarcastic snicker, and returned his attention to Alya. “I’m not angry that you know, Alya. I was scared that you’d tell everybody and… it’s the ‘everybody’ part I don’t trust. There are a lot of… bad people out there. And even without Papillon… can you imagine what someone like a thief or murderer could do with Cataclysm?” 

Alya shuddered. “Oh, thanks for THAT nightmare fuel.” 

“Yeah, that about sums up my reaction too.” 

Alya sighed and blew her nose again, then eyed the handkerchief. “So do I… give this back to you or rinse it out or put in the laundry or what?” 

“Uh. For nose blowing I’d say rinse and laundry. You can keep it if you want.” 

“Why do you even HAVE handkerchiefs?” 

Adrien shrugged. He glanced up ( _and Plagg darted to hide in Alya’s hair_ ) when Alya’s door opened and her Mom looked in. Marlena’s eyes widened and she came into the room as she took in Alya’s puffy and tear-streaked face. 

“Alya? What happened?” 

“I scared her, Madame Césaire,” Adrien offered quietly, shoulders hunching. 

“He scared me because he almost DIED last night,” Alya said quickly when her mom turned the Glare of Death on Adrien. “And it didn’t really register until now so it’s not his fault, please don’t be angry?” 

Marlena lost the glare at the word ‘died’ and came over to the bed, reaching over to put a hand on Alya’s shoulder, and her other hand on Adrien’s. “What happened?” 

“I… I ran into Madame Mort… the Akuma from yesterday.” 

“He was one of the people she drained,” Alya put in. “And he got drained REALLY badly.” 

“I’m fine,” Adrien offered, shuffling one foot. “I’m sorry that I-“ 

Alya rolled her eyes and threw her arms around Adrien and pulled him into a hug. “I told you. You don’t have to be sorry.” 

Marlena leaned back, considering the duo, raising an eyebrow at Alya. Alya nodded and smiled. It was okay. Her mom nodded and, giving Alya a quick hug and patting Adrien’s shoulder, turned and left the room, closing the door behind her. 

Alya blew out a breath of relief. Plagg poked his head out from her hair, then headed over to the cheese platter again and began munching. “Okay. So…” Alya glanced at Adrien, bit her lip, then made up her mind in a rush. 

“So… first question. Any idea why the Restoration would have missed Marinette’s room?” 

“Marinette’s room?” Adrien asked, brows scrunching up. 

Right, he’d been out of it at best. He probably remembered that he’d been in there ( _maybe… actually had anyone told him that part or had everyone just… assumed he knew?_ ) but he probably had no idea what had happened or the mess that had been left. 

“Plagg broke a glass jug, and a window got broken and there’s cheese and cream all over and stuff. It didn’t get fixed for some reason. Any idea why?” 

“Sometimes Ladybug’s subconscious adds or misses things,” Plagg offered as he munched on the cheese. “It’s really just Cataclysm’s opposite, after all. She doesn’t have to touch what she wants fixed, BUT she doesn’t have the ability for precise control over the results like the Black Cat does.” 

Alya glanced at Adrien, who shrugged. “I’d kinda figured out that Lucky Charm and Miraculous Restoration were a two-step equivalent to Cataclysm, but Plagg knows more than me.” 

…Oh, that sounded INTERESTING… both that Adrien ( _and Plagg?_ ) seemed to think that Lucky Charm and Miraculous Restoration were the same thing AND the control-vs-contact aspect. Also more fuel for the Nightmare fire because did that mean Cataclysm could destroy on the same level that Restoration created? 

No, don’t get distracted. Operation: Get Mari and Adrien Together was now underway, she just needed to get the ball rolling. She could ask all the questions she wanted answered later, after all. 

“Well… The end result is that Marinette is gonna have to clean up all of that, and that’s not fair, right?” 

“No, it isn’t,” Adrien agreed. 

“Sooooo… you could go and help her clean up!” 

Adrien visibly stalled out. 

“No, not as you you, as YOU you!” 

“Alya, what…” 

“Well, you can’t go help as Adrien, because that would just be weird, right? BUT you could go as Chat Noir! …and maybe get my phone for me while you’re at it.” 

“I… guess?” 

Alya smirked. “Then it’s settled. We tell my Manman your Père called and you hadda go home, you head over to Marinette’s as Chat Noir and help her out, then you come back here when you’re done and go home! Easy!” 

“What about the CHEESE?!” Plagg demanded. 

Alya rolled her eyes and got to her feet, grabbing a mesh bag. “It’ll be here when you get back. Lemme grab some cleaning supplies for you!” 

Adrien blinked as Alya strode out of the room, and finally looked at Plagg, who just shrugged and kept scarfing down the cheese samples. 

“Don’t look at me, I gave up understanding humans millennia ago.” 

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

> **Notes** ( _Which were too long for the notes block… again_ ):  
>  As the episode was mentioned here: I have **_Jackaday_** as the penultimate episode and **_Volpina_** as the finale episode when I’m watching the series. While **_Jackaday_** has happened ‘in-verse’, **_Volpina_** has NOT yet happened.  
>  **Madame Mort** took place a day or two after **_Jackaday_** , **Mnemosyne** starts the morning following **Madame Mort**.  
>  **_Volpina_** is coming and will likely happen ‘off camera’ between episodes as I’ve no desire to basically write a canon episode essentially word for word. 
> 
> Alya’s obsession with finding out the duo’s real identities is one of the only two problems I have with her character. While yes, it is realistic for a teenager, especially a teenager of Alya’s generation, a child of the information age; where information, any information and every truth, is the click of a button away and KEEPING secrets is almost impossible and to an extent frowned upon… That doesn’t mean that it’s a GOOD thing, or that it’s something that should be left unchecked. 
> 
> On top of this, Alya is fearless and in some matters, naïve. Despite Papillon being a real threat who has openly stated that he is willing to do anything for the Miraculi, and ample evidence of the danger… Alya still announced on a livestream ( _that she recorded and posted as well_ ) that she had found a textbook that was apparently Ladybug’s. That put every 9th/10th grader in her school, if not in Paris, in danger. There are smaller instances, but there’s also the fact that she initially got into the trouble that led to her becoming Lady Wifi for this ‘find the TRUTH’ thing too. Yeah, Chloé’s a jerk who blew things out of proportion, but Alya still took pictures of Chloé’s locker and would have happily stolen things from it for proof. And Alya was so caught up in FINDING the truth that she didn’t stop to think about the facts that A: No way is Chloé Ladybug, body type, hair, eyes, personality are all wrong. B: Ladybug has interacted with/rescued Chloé before this… and was recorded doing so. 
> 
> BUT, as far as I’m concerned, Alya just never really had to deal with the possible consequences of finding/revealing the truth. So in this chapter I had her get a bit of a scare and used Adrien to tell her what might happen if she revealed the truth to the world… something Alya had no frame of reference for. She’s a smart, kind-hearted kid, so the moment she’s made to realize that people she knows, cares for, or loves might be hurt or killed… *shrugs* She just really needed to be told what could happen in my mind. She also gets a good cry once the ‘people could die and it’d be my fault’ sinks in, which is actually a good thing, emotional health wise, as crying is a good stress release. 
> 
> ( _And yes, Adrien totally spent the school day after waking up writing out speeches and such… and then totally blanked on them when it was crunch time, notice how he loses the point a few times and repeats other things to an extent._ ) Adrien does not do well under pressure, he tends to forget things and just go with whatever bits and pieces he remembers and/or instinctive responses, although he does seem decent at long-lasting effects/long-term planning (Getting one’s self signed up to a school takes TIME and planning). Compare to Marinette who actually does better with spur of the moment/short-term planning but not so good at long-term planning/long-lasting effects. The duo balance each other WONDERFULLY, it’s so nice. 
> 
> Getting back on topic.. Alya is still a bit worked up, and that actually is part of the reason she jumps topics so fast, she wants distance from ‘people could have been hurt/killed’ which is totally normal. Plus, the no one ships Maridrien harder than Alya ( _Master Fu may be the founder of the Ship, but Alya has him beat hands down. Mari’s parents come in a pretty darn close second to Alya though_ ). She also knows that she can talk to Adrien later about any of the things she WANTS to know about pretty much whenever she wants now, and trust me, she is gonna be asking- Alya be a curious bitlet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: 8/1/2017  
> The Gorilla living at the Mansion was a choice I made while writing the next fic in this series (Sans Sheriff) when I decided to use my cousin-in-law Charles (himself a bodyguard) to round out/deepen the character... and one of the perks of Charles' job is that he and his son get to live in the home of his employer... which I decided to carry over for the Gorilla. BUT I had Adrien state that the Gorilla could even 'move in and live at the Mansion' originally here... hence, edit.
> 
> ~~~~~~
> 
> The oddity of Adrien’s home life is something that I’ve wanted to address, and this was actually the perfect place to get started for it BECAUSE it provided Alya with a frame of reference. Adrien states that he has NEVER been to school before, that he has NEVER really had friends, that he has never even had a birthday party. The Mansion has been reworked into a FORTRESS, state of the art and obviously often updated. Adrien has a bodyguard who is with him pretty much 24/7 ( _the guy obviously lives at the Mansion_ ). As I have Adrien state, that is NOT normal. Chloé is the daughter of the mayor, a man who is independently wealthy to probably the same price point as Mr. Agreste… and yet none of those things apply to her. Adrien’s comments about NEVER with school and friends means that EVEN WHEN HIS MOM WAS ALIVE, Adrien was cloistered away, never going to school or being allowed to make friends. You don’t have that level of protection unless there’s a reason for it… a reason that had to exist BEFORE his mother disappeared and before his father became as cold and distant as he is now. That indicates that Adrien has likely dealt with at least the threat of kidnapping and the like, and possibly actually HAS been kidnapped and/or threatened at some point prior to the series.
> 
> Oh, and Adrien clearing the room as fast as he did while he isn’t suited up? Totally within his canon civilian abilities. We’ve seen him cross distances FAST in more than one episode as Adrien ( _Pixelator for one example_ ) and in Origins the guy SPEED CLIMBS two stories ( _somewhere between 20 and 30 feet_ ) up a rock wall and then makes a flying leap across the room just to grab Plagg. Kid is ATHLETIC, and was so even before he started getting the ‘training’ benefits of parkouring all over Paris on a daily basis ( _we see Marinette become more athletic and less clumsy as a civilian as the series progresses too. Both of those kids are probably RIPPED under their clothes by this point, and not the showy bulk muscles but the serious lean muscle of gymnasts and athletes_ ).
> 
>  
> 
> Also! I have a beta reader now! Say hello to Sharm everyone!  
> ( _So, this is doubly funny to me because I’m a professional editor IRL… so to me it’s just funny that the editor has an editor ^_^_ )


	6. Chapter 6

Marinette sat on the top step of the stairwell, eying her room with trepidation.

It was just so… MUCH. Where did she even start? She’d delayed as long as she could. She’d helped her parents close and clean-up the bakery, eaten dinner as slowly as she could, done the dishes, put her duvet in the wash, did all of her homework and checked and double-checked and triple-checked it before her mom took it away and told her to clean up… and now, with no other excuse, she faced down her room. Tikki flew around sorting out where the glass was so that Marinette wouldn’t get hurt, and Marinette just tried to figure out what the best plan of action wa- 

Tikki suddenly looked up and gasped, then raced over to Marinette’s washstand and phased into the central drawer with a puff of pink and white sparkles. 

“Tikki, what-” 

“Shhhhh! His hearing is good enough that he’ll hear you!” 

His… hearing? Whose hearing? 

_Thump_. 

Marinette looked up at her ceiling at the sound. A moment of silence, then there was the soft chime of a bell, followed by light footsteps. A dark shape suddenly dropped into view at her broken window with another soft bell chime. 

A dark shape with green cat eyes and bright blond hair. 

“…Chat?!” 

“Hey, Princess.” 

Well, that explained Tikki’s comment about hearing… although it didn’t explain how Tikki had known he was coming. Getting to her feet, Marinette carefully picked her way across her room to her window. “What are you doing here?” 

Chat Noir held up a mesh bag stuffed full of cleaning supplies and smiled. “I heard tale that the Miraculous Restoration didn’t do a clean sweep and missed a room, and since this mess is my fault, I figured it’s only be polite to offer my services.” 

Marinette stared at the bag, then Chat Noir. She sighed. Hopefully he wouldn’t flirt with her again, BUT she doubted she could convince him to leave, so- 

“Come on in,” she turned and headed across her room. “If nothing else you can’t make it any worrRRRREEP!” Marinette was suddenly in the air, her arms pinned to her sides, Chat’s claws pricking her through her blazer ever so slightly. Marinette tried to wiggle free, kicking her legs, but her feet were half a meter above the floor and Chat Noir was far, FAR stronger than Marinette. “Chat Noir! Put me down right now!” She tried to wiggle free again, and looked over her shoulder to glare at the black-clad superhero. “What do you think you are doing?! Let go!” 

Chat… wasn’t looking at her. Instead he was staring… down? His eyes wide and what little she could see of his face pale. Marinette blinked and followed his gaze to the floor beneath her feet. 

And instantly hiked her legs up, her knees almost hitting her nose as she squeaked in panic. 

She’d almost walked right into the worst of the glass shards that littered her floor. Glass shards more than big enough to slice through her ballet slippers and her into feet and turn them into bloody ribbons. 

“You didn’t get any glass in your feet did you?” 

“EEEEP!” 

“…Is that a yes or a no?” 

“Eep!” 

Behind her, Chat sighed and then carried her over to the side of her room and gently deposited her in one of her swivel chairs. He knelt in front of her and caught her right ankle, ducking as he checked for any glass. Finding nothing, he let go of her right ankle and reached for her left. Marinette held the foot out, smiling ruefully as her partner checked it carefully as well before he leaned back with a whooshing sigh. “Okay, soles are clear.” 

“…Thank you, Chat Noir.” 

Chat smiled and winked at her. “No trouble, Princess. Just stay there till I clear up all the glass, okay?” Getting to his feet, he walked back to the broken window, avoiding most of the glass, although he did step on one or two of the shards… but the heavy soles of his boots were obviously better protection then her ballet shoes… although that could be the magical nature of his outfit as well, now that she thought about it. 

“Marinette? Is everything alright… up… heeeeeeeeeeereeeeee…” 

Tom Dupain stared at the tableau. On one side of the room, his daughter sat in one of her office chairs, legs hiked up against her chest. On the other side of the room stood CHAT NOIR, who was blinking at Tom with an expression he couldn’t quite place. 

Chat Noir held up the mesh bag of cleaning supplies, and Tom’s eyebrows made a run for his hairline. 

“Chat Noir heard about how my room was missed by the Miraculous Restoration and came to help me clean it up, Papa,” Marinette offered. 

Her dad looked at her, then looked back to Chat Noir. “I didn’t know you and Ladybug made a habit of cleaning up little things like this.” 

“Um. We don’t usually. But this,” Chat waved at the room. “Is actually my fault, so it’s only right that I help clean up.” 

“Your fault?” Tom asked. 

“Um. Yeah. I… kinda got… hurt pretty badly by Madame Mort last night and-” 

“I saw Ladybug trying to hide from Madame Mort and let them hide in here,” Marinette said quickly. “Chat Noir was unconscious, and when Madame Mort came to try and find them…” she waved a hand at the room. 

“…I have to ask. Why the cream and cheese?” 

“It’s uh- …a secret? I can cover the costs, if you can write up your losses,” Chat offered. “I really am sorry about the mess.” 

Tom couldn’t help but smile. “Well, I’m just glad that we were able to help the heroes of Paris. Marinette, do you want me to stay?” 

Marinette smiled. “No, Papa. Chat Noir is going to take care of the glass and that’ll make it easy… and safe… to clean up the rest of my room.” 

“Alright. I’ll leave you two to it.” 

Marinette waited until she heard her father head down to the second floor, then glanced at Chat, who was tilting his head as he studied her. “What?” 

“Why did you lie to him? I might not have been conscious, but I was filled in on what happened, AND I saw you on the street around sunset… you weren’t home last night.” 

Marinette hugged her legs to her chest. “I… I went out for a walk last night,” to try and head over to Notre Dame to watch Adrien’s photoshoot, but there was no way she was telling Chat Noir THAT. “-but I didn’t tell my parents. And I don’t want to get Alya in trouble either.” 

Chat nodded. “She’s the one who told me about your room getting missed,” he offered and he tossed his bag over to Marinette, who caught it more out of reflex than anything else. Chat looked around, then walked over to the trapdoor and picked up the broom lying beside it. “She said that her phone is still here, and wanted to know if I could grab it for her when I left,” he said as he began to sweep up the glass. 

“I brought it up to my room. I… Well, I saw it on the bookshelf and figured I’d give it to her today, but then I forgot to bring it in.” She would have grabbed it during lunch, but then the whole thing with Adrien had happened and that had meant no going home for lunch break. Marinette watched Chat work, resting her chin on her knees and hugging her legs to her chest. Now that she had a chance to pay attention, she could see that Chat was much more subdued than usual, his belt-tail dragging slightly and his usually bright eyes just a hair dull. She wondered if he was still off-balance from last night. He was also… very quiet, the only sound was the broom and glass. She glanced up at her ceiling, remembering the thump she’d heard. 

“Princess?” 

“I heard you land… and your bell chimed.” 

Chat chuckled and offered a sweeping bow, his bell chiming softly again. “I thought it best not to frighten you, Princess.” 

Marinette thought of the battles and patrols she’d shared with Chat Noir, and how rare the chime of his bell was, or the sound of a footfall. “You’re very stealthy, aren’t you, Chaton?” 

“I can be, yes,” Chat said, smiling, apparently amused to be called kitten. He went back to sweeping. “Do you have a wastebin?” 

Marinette swiveled her chair and leaned over, managing to snag her wastebin up and holding it out to Chat Noir, who took it over to the pile of glass and cheese he’d swept up and started to dump all of it in. Once he’d finished that, he dropped to a four-legged stance, balancing on his finger tips and toes as he checked- scoured really- Marinette’s room for any pieces of glass or cheese that he might have missed, adding them to the wastebin as he found them. He also went over to her broken window and worked every last piece of glass out of the frame before he went back to scouring her floor for glass shards. After several minutes, Chat finally sat up on his heels, resting his arms on his thighs. He looked around one last time, then nodded. “I think that’s all of the glass at least.” 

Marinette got off the chair and walked to the center of her room as Chat stood up, hands on her hips as she considered what was still left to be done. Chat casually laid the broom across his shoulders as if it were his baton, tip of his belt-tail slowly swaying like a true cat’s tail as he looked around. Marinette mentally breathed a sigh of relief at the fact that Madame Mort's temper tantrum and throwing of her chaise had knocked pretty much all of her pictures of Adrien off the walls of her room. At least this way Chat would not be teasing her about her crush. 

“Want me to get your chaise and bed back in place?” 

“Yes?” 

Chat nodded and handed her the broom, walking over to her chaise and carefully picking it up, carrying it over to its usual spot by her porthole window, although he then paused. “…Uh, could you get your rug?” 

“Oh! Yeah, sure, hold on!” 

Marinette ran over to the trapdoor and went down the steps to the pile of laundry and dug through it until she found her black petal round rug. A minute later and it was on the floor and Chat was putting the chaise down. He gave it a nudge, tilted his head, and then nudged it again. “Is that where it usually goes? …I’ve only really been in your room once.” 

“And you remembered where it went AND that I had a rug under it?” 

Chat shrugged. “I’ve got a good eye for detail and I memorize stuff fast. I have to, in my line of work.” 

“Your line of- No, nope, wait! No!” she waved her hands at him, flapping them in his bemused expression. “Don’t want to know! Secret identity! Don’t explain!” 

Chat snickered, shrugging one shoulder. He looked at her makeshift desk, wincing as he saw what remained of her computer. “How did your chaise end up over there anyway? There’s no way Alya did that.” 

“I think it was Madame Mort, actually. I guess she was angry that you got away,” Marinette sighed. Now that the chaise was back in place, she could see the damage done more clearly. While her jewelry box seemed to have made it out unscathed, her sewing machine was a total loss. There was no way it would work with dent as big as her head in the casing. Grumbling, she went over to start sorting out what could be salvaged and what couldn’t, putting her computer and her sewing machine by the trapdoor to take out to the garbage later, and shoving the pictures that had been knocked off the wall face-down on the desk to sort out later. Chat walked up the stairs to her loft and got to work moving the parts of her bed, then getting the frame, box spring, and finally the mattress lined up and in place. He hopped off the loft and over to the trapdoor. He poked at the computer and sewing machine for a bit, then picked them up and vanished down the stairs, coming back up a minute or two later with his arms full of Marinette’s bedding, which he took up to the loft and went to work with. 

“So… you’re a designer right? Clothes and drawings and stuff?” 

“Yeah,” Marinette said as she finished sorting out what was damaged beyond repair, what could be sorted out with a little work and what was not damaged. She looked at the two long boards she used as table tops, lifting the left hand one up enough that she could edge the stool she used as a support back into place before giving the board an experimental push. Seemed stable enough. Marinette started grabbing everything that wasn’t damaged and started putting it back in place on her table. 

She glanced up when she heard a snicker and saw Chat holding her cat pillow, poking its nose. “Leave it alone, Chaton.” 

Chat just snickered again, but a moment later he jumped down from the loft to land beside her. His eyes darted to her clock, and he winced. “Unfortunately, Princess, I have to get going. …are you alright with cleaning up the rest?” 

Marinette glanced around her room. She’d have to mop up, but everything else was just… little things. “Yes. Thank you for helping.” 

Chat offered a sweeping bow and headed for her window… the paused. “Um. Could you grab Alya’s phone for me? …and could you maybe give her the bag of supplies tomorrow?” 

Marinette giggled and nodded, heading over to her washstand and carefully opening the central door, using her body to block Chat’s view as she smiled at Tikki and scooped Alya’s phone up. Closing the drawer, she walked over and handed it to Chat, who put it in his left pocket and zipped it closed. He winked and offered his usual casual salute, then leapt out her window to land on the rooftops across the street. Another leap and he was out of sight. 

Tikki phased out of the drawer and came to land on Marinette’s shoulder, giggling. Marinette smiled at her friend and couldn’t help giggling a bit herself. “That was interesting,” she offered. 

Tikki smiled, eyes dancing. “Yes, it was. And you didn’t even try to shake him once!” 

…SHOOT! 

Darn. But it was just as well, explaining why MARINETTE was shaking one of the heroes of Paris and ordering him not to scare her again would have been… almost impossible to explain. 

…She’d shake him on patrol tomorrow. 

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“Master?” 

“Yes, Nooroo?” 

Nooroo ducked at the sharp tone of voice. She hesitated, then looked up at the holder of her Miraculous. “You… think you know who the Black Cat is. Why…” she trailed off, uncertain of what she wanted to ask, much less how to ask it. 

Her Master did not look up from her brooch, his gaze locked onto the picture he’d put within it. “I am… uncertain at this moment. There is the evidence of the ring, but he was seen by someone who was with Chat Noir last night.” 

“You did not see him through Madame Mort’s eyes,” Nooroo pointed out softly, unable to help herself. It did not matter that she had not Chosen him. He had found the brooch, he controlled it and thus commanded her unwavering loyalty. 

She could do no less then provide her all to him. 

A deep sigh. “Yes, Nooroo, you are right. But I…” he traced the picture within the brooch. “I hope it is not him. I do not want it to be him. The danger he would be placing himself in, day after day… I could not bear it. Chat Noir is reckless, and Ladybug puts him in danger time and again. …Chat Noir was almost killed last night, has almost been killed before.” 

“If Adrien is Chat Noir, as you suspect, then you are responsible for the danger, Master,” Nooroo pointed out. 

“…I must have their Miraculi. I MUST have the ultimate power they grant!” The Brooch was closed sharply, his hand clenching tight around it, knuckles white. “It is the only way!” 

“But-” Nooroo broke off. “Why must you… do it this way, Master? The Butterfly Miraculous was meant to be used to provide soldiers in war, especially against magical foes or even the Primordial! By using it this way… you are opening the door to the very evil your Champions are meant to combat!” 

“…Yes. I know, Nooroo. But it is the only way to draw the Ladybug and the Black Cat out. If I were to stop, so too would they.” 

“You could… tell him? If Adrien is not Chat Noir, then he will be confused, but will be better able to avoid the dangers of your Akuma. If he is Chat Noir, surely… he will understand why you are doing this? Perhaps he could convince Ladybug as well, and then you could have your dearest wish.” 

“…Would that it were so easy, Nooroo.” 

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

> **Notes** ( _Which were too long for the notes block… in what seems to be becoming a trend_ ):  
>  Okay, so… Nooroo’s pronouns. I first saw the Origins episodes in the Korean dub, and it was several months before I finally saw the French and then English dubs… which means I’d gotten used to Nooroo having/using female pronouns and very distinctly female voice ( _primarily when Wayzz and Fu are speaking of Nooroo for the pronouns_ ). I know that Nooroo uses male pronouns in the French and English dubs, and has a very obviously male voice in the French dub, although Nooroo's voice in the English dub is essentially gender-neutral, and I could have gone the middle course and used gender neutral pronouns… But I kinda got used to the female in the Korean dub and so just… stuck with it. *Shrugs* In my fic verse at least, Nooroo uses female pronouns as she does in the Korean dub. 
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
> 
> Marinette’s obsession with Adrien is one of the things that I hope gets addressed in the show as we move forward because… it’s stalker levels creepy at times ( _especially in some of the earlier episodes_ ). Now that said… The pictures of him all over her walls? The computer background? Those are normal and I have no real problems with it, MOST kids tend to have tons of pictures of their crush all over and Adrien has been shown to have the LadyBlog open more often than not ( _although he doesn’t have any pictures of her on display outside of the LadyBlog BUT that could be issues with his father_ ). It isn’t the pictures that bug me at all. I did do an edit so that most of the pictures were not present/Chat didn't see them, as he is NOT an idiot and would have figured out that Mari had a crush on him from said pictures... plus I realized that 99% of Mari's Adrien pictures are where I'd had Madame Mort chuck the chaise and would have been knocked off the wall in any case. Thus, Adrien remains blissfully unaware of Marinette's crush for the time being. 
> 
> It’s the schedule and her possessiveness. Marinette went out and bought a pull down calendar and then proceeded to find out every detail of Adrien’s schedule, which she also has canonically memorized. Every time she thinks someone is expressing interest in Adrien, she gets jealous and ACTS on her jealousy, sometimes going extremely overboard ( _Lila for one example_ ). 
> 
> What I like is that, so far as I can tell, the creators are aware that her obsession and possessiveness over Adrien are unhealthy for both of them. Mari might laugh it off, but she WAS called out on the schedule thing by Alya. Tikki and Alya call her out on stealing the phone ( _both end up helping, but there is still the ‘this is wrong you know’ moment_ ). When she acts on her jealousy as Ladybug, she is punished/taught a lesson. ( _Tikki dropping the transformation only seconds after the misuse of Lucky Charm, Lila stating she’ll NEVER be friends, etc_ ). That’s a GOOD thing, plot and character wise. If nothing else the possessiveness/hardheadedness gives her a good, solid, character flaw to address and overcome and that’s a WONDERFUL thing for stories. I also like that said flaw shows up outside of Adrien, especially her hardheadness such as with her dislike of Chloé ( _granted Chloé pretty much deserves it, but not from LADYBUG because then she has no idea what she did wrong and has no frame of reference to change her behavior- she was just punished for no reason so far as she knows_ ). Character flaws and strengths and development FOR THE WIN 
> 
> I also like that the show both comments on how stalking can be creepy ( _Pixelator_ ) and juxtapose Marinette’s love for Adrien with Chat’s love for Ladybug. Because let me tell you I LOVE how Chat/Adrien’s love for Ladybug is written. 
> 
> Marinette fell in love with the kind boy who offered her his umbrella and then… created an idealized version of him in her head and has only had limited interactions with him because she’s built him up in her head to this perfect paragon that… no one can live up to and she just babbles and short-circuits around him to the point that she rarely talks to/interacts with Adrien. She stares after him, dreams about him, etc… but she doesn’t TALK to him, doesn’t get to know him, she only knows the front he presents to the world and the version she’s built up of him, which is too bad because the duo would actually likely be very good friends if they could just TALK to each other, esp as both are kind and helpful to others. 
> 
> Adrien fell in love with the ‘crazy awesome’ girl who literally fell out of the sky, bonked him on the head with her yoyo ( _and has done so more than a few times now_ ), came and fought beside him, yanked his tail( _something ELSE she’s done a few times_ ), and then THREW HIM AT A MONSTER with no explanation. As Chat, he is aware of her flaws and her strengths, and indeed has called her out on her flaws a few times AND has taken her calling him on his flaws in good grace, and is quite happy with her being the ‘boss’ of the team. Chat and Ladybug’s relationship is actually a very good one. It’s full of support, healthy criticism and trust. Chat flirts with her, but he respects her boundaries and lines in the sand, and while she tends to shoot his flirting down, it’s usually fairly playful so he keeps trying. The only person he’s ever flirted with outside of Ladybug is oddly enough Marinette and it’s really funny because to his FACE, Marinette encourages him… the only times she indicates that she doesn’t like the flirting is when his back is turned to her or her back is to him. She never actually tells him to stop, in fact she basically goes ‘keep going’. ( _Also, given the way he keeps eying the roofline and the like, I seriously wonder if the reason Chat was so overboard was because he thought Ladybug was watching, which would at least explain why he flirted with Marinette when he doesn’t flirt with anyone else… seriously I rewatched the series to check this and the closest he comes is the time when Lady Wifi demands to know who they are and he looks at Ladybug, shrugs and flexes for a second which feels more like ‘what you don’t recognize us?’_ ) 
> 
> So what I’m hoping for in the CANON series ( _because I’m totally aiming to head towards it in my writing_ ) is that Marinette will start to actually INTERACT with Adrien and start to see his flaws and strengths, who he really is instead of the idealized version she’s drummed up in her head… and that will hopefully lead to a healthy relationship comparable to the one Chat is trying to initiate with Ladybug because those two are ADORABLE together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As an aside, I swear to God that it’s an accident that I haven’t had Tikki get up to much thus far. I LOVE Tikki, she’s this adorable little ball of GOODNESS. It’s just ended up as I’ve been writing, where I keep accidentally getting situations where Tikki keeps getting in places/times where she can’t get up to much :/ I’m trying to correct that, although I don’t know when I’ll be able to work some more scenes in. ( _Sorry, Tikki!_ )
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> Restating this as I got an email asking about it… I tend to have Jakaday as the pen-ultimate episode and Volpina as the finale episode. This is important only because of where I’m having this series fall in the canon series timeline. 
> 
> Basically Madame Mort takes place the day after Jakaday, with Mnemosyne starting the following morning and carrying over the next few days. Oddly enough, Alya’s quick lie of seeing Adrien while she was with Chat Noir actually HELPED Chat with his cover. Papillon has started to suspect Adrien, but Alya saying she saw Adrien separate from Chat, has him stepping back and reconsidering. 
> 
> Volpina has not yet happened in my series. This is thus far taking place in between the two episodes.  
>    
> Also, to answer the second question in the email: I overall use the French Episode names, although I sometimes use the English ( _I like using **Timebreaker** , for example, due to the watch breaking or **Evillustrator because pun**_ )


	7. Chapter 7

Marinette woke bright and early the next morning, although nowhere near as early as her parents. She smiled out at the sunrise, then stretched. Getting to her feet, she made her bed, giggling as she pulled the covers up and over the still sleeping Tikki.

She was all the way over to her washstand and had turned the spigot to start filling the bowl with water when there was a startled “Hey!” from her bed, and then Tikki came over to pout at the still giggling Marinette as she washed her face and brushed her hair. Once she was done, Marinette smiled and carefully carried the half-full bowl of water up the stairs to her loft and from there up to her balcony, using it to water her plants before swiping it with a clean towel and putting it back on her washstand. 

Humming to herself, she trotted downstairs to make herself some breakfast. She’d help out in the bakery for a few hours, then the rest of the day would be hers. She paused the moment she got downstairs, staring wide-eyed at what awaited her. 

“…Mamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan?!” Marinette wailed, not willing to take her eyes off the two items sitting oh-so-innocently on the kitchen counter. 

Her mother came upstairs a moment later, and covered her mouth to try and muffle a laugh when she saw Marinette. “Ah, you’ve seen the gifts then?” 

Marinette managed a strangled squeak. 

“He was as good as his word. Your father found those, a note, and an envelope with cash sitting on the bakery counter this morning.” Sabine pulled the note out of her pocket, holding it out for Marinette to read. “Such lovely handwriting.” 

Marinette dove over and snatched up the note. 

> _Monsieur and Madame,_  
>  _I hope that I estimated your losses accurately. If I came up short, please let me know when next you see me or by posting on the LadyBlog, although I would ask that you use a private thread there. If you contact Alya Césaire, she will be able to set such up for you._
> 
> _Marinette,_  
>  _I saw that these two items were damaged beyond repair. As I am to blame, I thought it best to try to make up for it. I hope I got the brand and specs right on both!_
> 
> The note was signed with a simple cat pawprint. 

Marinette stared at the note for several minutes, but the words didn’t change. She finally looked back to the kitchen counter and the brand new computer ( _same brand, but newer model_ ) and sewing machine ( _definitly not the same brand or model, it was a big hulking top of the line thing and exactly the type she'd been dreaming about buying some day in the future when she was rich and famous_ ) that were, apparently, all hers. 

Sabine laughed and patted Marinette’s shoulder, then vanished downstairs. Marinette slowly wandered over to examine the brand sparkling new sewing machine, then the computer. 

Tikki flew over to sit on the counter, and watched her Chosen slowly getting more and more excited about the gifts, and couldn’t help giggling. 

It always amused Tikki, how Plagg would snark and brag about how heartless and selfish he was, and yet he always somehow had the kindest and most giving souls to be found as his Chosen. It was, to Tikki, the funniest thing about her other half. 

Just like, at this moment, the funniest thing about her Chosen was Marinette’s tendency of devolving into squeaks at the oddest times. 

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The window irised open, butterflies took wing, making the air rustle around him. Papillon clasped his hands behind his back, eyes closed as he let his senses wander, casting his net as wide as he could. 

There was always strong emotion to be found in Paris. Any strong emotion called to him, provided a view of the city created by millions of overlapping views. But it was not love or joy that he searched for. Anger and grief were far easier to manipulate, a mind filled with them crafted a Champion who was usually simple to direct and command. And so he passed over the bright emotions and instead looked for the dark. As he found each dark spot a view of the city, or those whose hearts burned, filtered into his minds eye. 

So much pain and rage. Some hurts were small, fading before his eyes, but many more burned deeply, giving him a clear view of thousands, their thoughts and emotions battering at him, demanding his attention. 

He stayed above it, drifting across, sifting through the words and emotions to find what he needed. 

Soon he had narrowed his candidates down to a dozen or so and now he mentally pulled each one to the forefront of his mind, sending a wordless inquiry out to the Akumas that fluttered about him, seeing what powers they would grant each possible Champion. 

Hmm. No, this one would not do, his powers would kill Ladybug and Chat Noir without a doubt and he did not want death that would never be reversed on his hands if it could be avoided. 

No, no, the superheroes would possibly be killed by this woman and the amount of destruction her hurricanes would bring would only add to his troubles, as it would probably be impossible to find the Miraculi amidst the rubble, and his own home would be in danger of being destroyed. 

Alright, he was fairly certain that NO, the ability to summon snuggly ponies would NOT, in any reality, be useful. 

…Ah. 

Yes. 

This one would be perfect. 

He held out one hand, and an Akuma fluttered down to land upon it. Cupping his hand over the Akuma, he charged it with dark energy, then sent it on its way. 

Far away, beneath looming steel and glass of the business district, a new Champion was made, and Papillon looked through her eyes as her thoughts and hurts came to him, and he let the net and other candidates fall away. 

“Hello, Mnemosyne. I am the Papillon. I can help you show the world what it is like to be forgotten, to have your memories stripped away… but in return, you must do something for me.” 

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It was five o’clock, the sun was shining, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and Ladybug was swinging through Paris even as the hour was tolled. Her parents thought she was heading over to Alya’s, Alya thought she was staying home and that was all bases covered! ( _She was mostly certain_ ) So now it was time to meet up with Chat at the Eiffel Tower and head off for patrol. 

…Well, time to find Chat, grab him and SHAKE HIM until he learned to stop scaring her like that… and maybe hug him until he squeaked for the sewing machine and computer although she wasn’t certain HOW to explain that one. …but the ‘shaking-until-you-stop-dying-for-me’ part had to happen because he REALLY needed to learn that, she wasn’t certain how much more her heart could take. 

Arriving at the Eiffel Tower, Ladybug landed near the top and headed over to the beams where she and Chat usually met for their patrols. She paused as she got closer, surprised to find that Chat was already present and waiting… usually Ladybug arrived before Chat Noir. 

Her partner was tucked amongst the beams, lying down on one of the angled struts, his eyes closed as he listened to music on an ipod held loosely in one hand. Even with the music down low, he apparently didn’t hear Ladybug approaching. His expression didn’t shift, and not even his ‘cat ears’ twitched as Ladybug sat down near his feet. 

Ladybug opened her mouth to ask if he was alright, then froze, eyes going wide, as the Jagged Stone song that had been playing ended and the next song began… but this wasn’t another hard rock number, it was… 

“Is that a LUTE?!” Ladybug demanded, reaching over and snatching the ipod out of Chat’s lax grip to look at the screen to find out what song was playing. 

Chat Noir YELPED and jerked away, and fell off the beam with a yowl. Ladybug made a grab for his tail and missed. She went to grab her yoyo, but Chat flipped in midair and extended his baton to catch himself a level down, and hung there, gasping and eyes wide before he finally looked up at Ladybug. 

Ladybug offered a small wave. “Hi?” 

“Hi!” Chat yelped. He hung for another moment, calming down, then pulled himself up onto his baton and walked over to where it met the lattice work. A minute later and he was beside Ladybug, who looked ruefully at the screen of the ipod to find that, yes it WAS Lute music. ‘Lute Mix-Dufault Suite in g’ by Michael Schaeffer it seemed. …Whoever that was. She scrolled through the playlist, raising her eyebrows as she saw several other pieces marked with ‘lute mix’, as well as ‘piano mix’, 'folk metal mix' and ‘rock mix’ amidst others. 

“LUTES?!” 

Chat Noir ducked in embarrassment. “Lutes are awesome, okay? …can I have my ipod back?” 

Ladybug could only offer it to Chat Noir, who snatched it out of her hands and switched it off, stuffing it into his left pocket and zipping said pocket up quickly, his face still burning red in embarrassment. 

“Um. What’s the hurdy gurdy mix?” 

“Hurdy Gurdy music.” 

…Alright. Soon as she got home she was finding out what the heck hurdy gurdy music was. In the meantime- “Why were you listening to music up here?” 

Chat Noir shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck, staring out over Paris as he sat down next to Ladybug. “I... I’ve had a really bad couple of days.” 

Ladybug edged closer to him, trying to lean forward to meet his eyes. “Because of Madame Mort?” 

“…Yeah, kinda. I didn’t get much sleep and had work yesterday morning and this morning too… And things between me and my Pè-” he broke off and shrugged. 

“…Do you wanna talk about it?” 

Chat sighed, pulling one leg up against his chest and resting his chin on it. “Yeah. But I can’t. Not without talking about my family and school and Akumas and stuff that you- …stuff that we can’t talk about, so-” Chat broke off sharply and got to his feet. “So we’re patrolling north today, right? …bet you can’t keep up.” 

Ladybug reached for him, but Chat ignored her, extending his baton and vaulting off into the afternoon sky. Ladybug remained for a minute after he left, arm still extended uselessly, fingers curled before she sighed and threw her yoyo, giving chase. 

She finally caught up to him nearly twenty minutes later at the top of the Fondation Louis Vuitton art museum. Landing behind him, Ladybug went to grab his shoulders to spin him around to face her. He obviously needed to talk and… well, yeah, she’d made it obvious over the months that keeping their identities secret was vital to her but- there were ways AROUND it. Ways to talk about what was wrong without revealing too much ( _maybe… probably_ ) and- 

Chat raised a hand, and Ladybug froze. 

His eyes were closed, she realized, and she could see his ‘cat ears’ twitching and rotating as they tracked… something. So she waited. 

When his eyes snapped up and he looked to the west, Ladybug stepped up next to her partner. “What is it?” 

“Trouble.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so the 'Lute' exchange is a conversation that happened IRL between myself and a friend of mine (Laura), a conversation that ended with me muttering, in total honesty 'Lutes are awesome, okay?'
> 
> Seconds after said conversation, Laura and I both decided that one of us had to work it into a story at SOME point because... well, the sentence 'Lutes are awesome okay' is just too funny not to use.
> 
> Adrien ended up being the fan of Lute music largely because he canonically plays the piano, which means he's exposed to classical and older music with a fair amount of regularity and could have easily picked up an enjoyment of said OLD music... 
> 
> I also headcanon ( _which means it is canon for my series_ ) that his father used to enjoy, and would listen, to lutes and similar old instruments prior to the disappearance of Adrien's mother... So lute music also brings back good memories Adrien has of a time when his father isn't the man he is now... a time when things were better then they are now. It's also one of the only points of connection he still has with his father outside of modeling at this particular point in his life.


	8. Chapter 8

They raced westward, crossing the Seine and leaving the older, more residential, districts of Paris behind as they reached Paris’ business sector, the sixteen skyscrapers looming ahead. They leapt to the overpass, and from there to the one of the first of the buildings of the area.

Ladybug could hear the trouble now. The screams and sounds of what she’d come to consider ‘general destruction’ echoed and re-echoed through the glass and steel buildings, making it impossible for her to pinpoint the source. People were driving and running every which way, and likely had no more idea where exactly they were running to or from then Ladybug did. She tried to see if there were more people running from one area then another, or if the sounds were louder one way- but it was a mess, and so Ladybug turned towards Chat. His eyes were closed again, and now his head was tilted as his ears twitched and rotated, sorting through the chaos. He took a step to the right, shook his head and walked forward, then nodded and opened his eyes. “This way!” 

They kept to the rooftops, and a few minutes later, they finally found the Akumatized victim. Chat perched on the cement railing, resting his arms on his thighs as he stared down at the street below. Ladybug stood and leaned over the railing, frowning. She held up her yoyo and slid the top down to access the camera and screen within. Using her thumb and forefinger, she zoomed in until she had a clear view of the supervillain 50 stories below, Chat shifting his weight to one knee as he leaned over her shoulder to see. 

It was a pale woman with a surprisingly normal looking face wearing green greek-style robes flying ( _or maybe floating was the better word_ ) down the street. Her long auburn hair and dress flowing around and behind her like ink in water. She had a chalice in one hand, and what looked like an oil lamp in the other. Ladybug zoomed further in, looking over the two items. The Akuma had to be in one, the only question was WHICH one. 

“AGAIN with the flying,” Chat muttered, annoyed. “Why can so many of them FLY? …and on that note, why can’t YOU fly? Real ladybugs fly after all! You should totally have… like a backpack that splits open with wings, or like a scarf or split cape that goes stiff and turns into wings, or two long ribbons attached to your shoulders, or SOMETHING.” 

Ladybug blinked and slowly turned to stare at her partner. 

“What? …I have claws, and night-vision and better hearing, and all sorts of cat things… I mean heck, I have a TAIL… why don’t you have wings?” 

“Is this REALLY the time, Chat?” 

“Umm.” Chat glanced around as if searching for an answer before finally looking back to Ladybug. “…no?” 

Ladybug shook her head and hopped up onto the railing, then swan-dived off, Chat right beside her as they raced downwards towards the unsuspectin- 

Chat flipped in midair, hiked his legs in and then KICKED Ladybug in the hip at full force, sending both off at wild angles. Ladybug drew in a breath to yell at him when a CAR shot through the air where they’d been before smashing through the glass of the building they’d jumped off of. 

Ladybug threw her yoyo at a streetlight and TUGGED, and was yanked down faster than she could fall. A quick flip and she landed on top of the pole, her yoyo back in her hand. The Akumatized woman turned to face her and Ladybug smirked. “Missed me!” she sang mockingly, trying to keep the woman’s eyes on her and not on Chat, who had apparently rebounded off one building and into another and was now scrambling down the wall like a cat trying to get out of a tree, making him an easy target for the supervillain. 

The woman’s eyes narrowed, and then she smiled. “Why so I did, ma chérie. Let us see if I can do BETTER!” The hand holding the chalice whipped around, and a bus was ripped off the ground as if by an invisible hand and thrown at Ladybug. Ladybug leapt and ran along the top of the bus, pushing off the end and swinging her yoyo, trying to snatch the chalice out of her hand. Alright, that was almost certainly the Akumatized object! The woman climbed up and away from her, dress flowing in her wake- 

And promptly was sent crashing back to earth, a snarling Chat Noir on her back. 

“Get OFF me you mangy CUR!” She took to the air again, flipping and twisting, before finally flying backfirst into a building, forcing Chat Noir to leap away. 

“Cur is a DOG, Inkblot!” 

A car was thrown at Chat, who leapt away, laughing. “Oh, not an inkblot? Mrs. Float then?” three motorcycles. “Red? ‘Red’ would be a **purr** fect name for you.” The bus that had been thrown at Ladybug. “No? Ah! Of course! Ariel! The hair and dress and ‘under water floaty’ theme makes it such a **claw** so-“ Chat took a motorcycle to the chest and slammed through a wall. There was a slight pause while a few cinderblocks and dust fell, then came a very annoyed “OW!” 

Ladybug breathed a sigh of relief and tried to use the distraction Chat Noir was creating to lasso the chalice, only to curse when the yoyo’s string slid off the smooth sides forcing Ladybug to dodge two cars in quick succession as the Akumatized villain’s attention returned to her. 

Chat leapt out of the new hole in the wall and raced by the supervillain on all fours, his usually black suit looking grey from the dust. “That’s going to cost you, Ariel!” 

“I am MNEMOSYNE!” 

Chat stumbled to a stop and stared at Mnemosyne. “Wait, like the Tita-” Chat barely got out of the way as the bus was pressed into service for a third time. “STOP that!” 

“Get the chalice, Chat! It has to be the Akumatized item!” 

“You’d think with the myths Papillon would'a gone for the lamp,” Chat muttered, leaping at Mnemosyne, pulling his baton and splitting it in two before pressing the attack. 

On the supervillain’s other side, Ladybug went into action… and all around them the civilians who should have been running away stopped to watch or even crept out of their hiding places, cheering the heroes on. Ladybug really wished that THIS, the way so many people seemed to think that since the heroes were fighting the villain the danger was over and stayed to watch as if it were a SHOW, would just STOP. Couldn’t they see how much danger they were in?! How much harder it made the fight for her and Chat!? 

Mnemosyne gestured with the chalice, and the bus rushed at Ladybug, who dodged to the side, then spun to throw her yoyo, creating a barrier between the bus and the civilians. “GET OUT OF HERE! GET SOMEPLACE SAFE!” 

“I got it, LB!” 

“GIVE THAT BACK!” 

“Don’t wanna, can’t make me!” 

Ladybug retracted her yoyo and turned to watch as Chat raced by, Mnemosyne in tight pursuit. He tossed the chalice to Ladybug, who caught it and smashed it to the ground. 

…No Akuma emerged. 

Well, SH- 

“LADYBUG!” 

She dove to the side without thinking, and a beam of golden light lanced through the air where she’d been, hitting two of the civilians that crowded the streets. Ladybug landed in a practiced tumble and threw her yoyo blindly and tugged and a moment later was across the street, several stories above Mnemosyne. 

Chat was grabbing the men who’d been hit by the beam and dragging them around the corner, snapping for everyone to RUN! 

Maybe it was the more ‘Akuma’ threat of the energy beams, maybe it was that people always seemed a bit more afraid of Chat than her, but this time the civilians began to clear the area, slower than she’d like as they cluttered each other’s ways… but at least they were moving. 

On the street, Mnemosyne ducked and picked up the shattered chalice, which glowed and then reformed in her hand. 

“Chat! She’s got the chalice back!” she called in warning as Chat started to come back around the corner of the building. 

A tractor-trailer cab smashed down, creating a massive cloud of dust and an explosion followed as Mnemosyne used the energy beam from her oil lamp on the truck, making electricity arc over and through it, and the gasoline in the truck’s engine and tanks went up in flames. 

“CHAT!” 

No answer, and she wasn’t certain if she imagined the one shadow moving away from the flaming wreckage or not. Ladybug growled and spun her yoyo, then swung and leapt to the balcony of another building to give herself better footing. She snapped the yoyo out in a series of rapid strikes, trying to keep Mnemosyne off balance. The poor bedraggled bus was pressed into service yet again, and Ladybug flipped off the balcony to land on the street, then had to throw herself to the side to avoid a set of motorcycles- 

Which put her right in the path of the beam from the oil lamp Mnemosyne carried.


	9. Chapter 9

Black armor was suddenly between her and the beam as Chat Noir spun his staff into a silver shield and the beam… broke apart in a sunburst that made Mnemosyne shield her eyes and fall back for the moment.

Ladybug grabbed Chat’s tail with one hand and lassoed an air conditioning unit of the building behind them with her yoyo, and a moment ( _and a yowl_ ) later both were up on the roof, and Ladybug dragged them away from the edge so Mnemosyne wouldn’t see them. 

“What did you think you were doing?!” 

“Keeping you from losing a year of your memories!” Chat snarled, his eyes wide and face pale, and Ladybug was surprised to see his hands shaking. 

“…What?” 

“That’s what the beam does, it steals your memories or erases them. Both of the guys that got hit lost a year!” Chat waved his left arm in a wild gesture. “The beam almost hit you, I had to protect you!” 

“What if your baton hadn’t stopped it?!” 

“It worked!” Chat snapped. “Don’t knock it if it works!” 

“Next time just get us BOTH out of the way instead of trying to TAKE THE HIT FOR ME!” Ladybug punched his right shoulder, then frowned when he winced. “What-?” 

“Truck caught me, but I’ll be fine.” He rotated the shoulder. “And you DO have quite the legendary left-hook.” He looked towards the edge of the building, then back to Ladybug. “What’s the plan, my Lady?” 

“Cat and Mouse. Lead her west, deeper into the business district, hopefully away from civilians on the street, try to get the oil lamp.” 

Chat Noir nodded and rotated his shoulder again with a grunt. “Try to keep it low so we have more room to maneuver?” 

“Probably better if we mix it up as best we can. Fewer vehicles for her to toss at us on the rooftops, but yeah… not going to have as many options for dodging up here.” 

Chat nodded and bowed. “After you, Bugaboo.” 

Ladybug rolled her eyes, then ran and leapt off the rooftop, flipped and pushed off the wall of the building across the street and used that to rush down at Mnemosyne. Chat leapt after her, extending his baton and managing to catch the villain’s shoulder, knocking her into a spin. 

Cat and Mouse was a strategy neither of them really liked. It was draining and dragged the fights on much longer than usual, and enhanced- magically fueled- stamina or no, Cat and Mouse tended to end with both of them dragging. 

It did, however, work when they needed it, especially when dealing with an enemy that had ranged attacks that made closing in difficult and finding a moment to call Lucky Charm almost impossible. 

Chat Noir and Ladybug chased Mnemosyne down the road, dodging and sliding under the cars, motorcycles and trucks that she pitched their way, trying to catch or pin her long enough for one of them to snatch the oil lamp out of her hand. 

“It’s getting **claw** fully CLUTTERED here, Ladybug!” 

“Mouse!” 

Chat Noir leapt up to dig his claws of his right hand into the wall of one of the high-rise buildings. He held out his baton with his left as he pulled his legs up, bracing his feet against the glass beneath him. Ladybug’s yoyo wrapped around the end of the baton and with a practiced move, Chat swung the baton like a bat, adding a good chunk of distance to Ladybug’s yoyo-assisted leap. She landed atop one of the skyscrapers and Chat retracted his baton and let go of the wall with his right hand, reaching over to grab the string of the yoyo with both hands just as Ladybug retracted it, pulling him away from his perch and to her. 

Ladybug watched how he landed carefully, worried that he was hiding injuries from her, but then returned her attention to the supervillain below when he landed smoothly. Mnemosyne was heading their way so she backed up to get some space, then ran and jumped off the roof, within moments landing on the skyscraper across the street. She began to spin her yoyo, shifting her stance as Mnemosyne finally reached their level, looking back and forth between the two heroes. She gestured with the chalice and wrenched one of the massive air conditioning units from the roof and swung it around, forcing Chat to leap over it and Ladybug to slide under it. 

Ladybug smiled grimly as she came up with her yoyo already spinning into a shield, blocking the energy beam. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” She leapt, landing on the next building, drawing Mnemosyne further along. Across the street, Chat was doing the same, taunting the supervillain as he laughed and leapt. Ladybug took a moment to look to the west. 

The huge, ‘hollow’ bulk of the Grande Arche was up ahead. That would be a good place to fight. Lots of space on the top and, so long as the helicopter pad wasn’t in use, little if anything that could be pressed into service by Mnemosyne’s chalice. 

Ladybug snapped her yoyo out, tangling Mnemosyne’s legs and yanking her down for a second. Catching Chat’s eyes, she nodded towards the Grande Arche. He glanced to the west, brows furrowed, then his expression cleared and he nodded with a huge smile and a thumbs up. He took off running along the rooftop as Mnemosyne climbed back up, reaching the end he jumped and spun to face her, holding his hands fisted near his jaw. “Nyyyyaaaaa!” he shouted as he arched over the space to land atop the next building… which had the desired effect of catching all of the villains attention, letting Ladybug get out of sight by jumping over the far edge of the building. Throwing her yoyo, she ran along the side, swinging to the next building and staying low to hopefully avoid being spotted. 

It took a long time, several exhausting minutes, to get Mnemosyne what was wasn’t even a full kilometer. 

Ladybug landed on the top of the CNIT and slid down the smooth arching sides towards the esplanade, glancing over her shoulder to keep track of Mnemosyne as the supervillain closed the gap. She smirked when Chat leapt from the top of the Tour Areva and extended his baton right into the small of Mnemosyne’s back, sending the woman crashing down to the ground as Chat pole-vaulted land in front of the CNIT. 

Ladybug jumped the last few meters to land beside her partner. “Good Kitty,” she said, keeping her gaze locked onto the Akumatized villain. Chat smiled at the compliment, but the smile died as his gaze darting around taking in how many people were here; although the crowds were, fortunately, running to get clear… and unfortunately clogging the doors to the various buildings that lined the open expanse of the esplanade, including the entrances to the CNIT right behind the duo, which made Chat groan. 

Maybe he should find a way of talking to Chloe… If he convinced her that Ladybug had suggested it, or that Chloe herself came up with it… maybe they could have the mayor use the air raid sirens as a way of telling people when and WHERE to evacuate from so that there’d be fewer peo- 

Ladybug grabbed Chat Noir and yanked him in close as she spun her yoyo into a shield when a beam reflected off one of the glass-sided buildings and almost caught him in its wake. 

“Focus!” 

“Sorry.” 

Ladybug’s eyes darted from Mnemosyne to the glass and back again. “Okay. I think I know how to… beat… oh god.” 

Mnemosyne was smiling, eyes wild as she held the chalice high… and the massive cement truck she’d just plucked from Avenue de la Division Leclerc hovering high above her head, rotating slowly. She laughed as she drew her arm back, unmindful of the screams of the two men in the truck’s cab. Ladybug threw a frantic glance over her shoulder, but the civilians were still there, crowding the doors, pressing against each other as they all tried to get inside to the relative safety all at once. 

Ladybug threw her yoyo, lassoing Mnemosyne’s legs and yanking her down, trying to take her out of the sky before she could- 

Even as she was yanked down, Mnemosyne snapped her arm forward, throwing the cement truck straight at Ladybug and Chat Noir… and the dozens of people behind and around them.


	10. Chapter 10

Ladybug yanked her yoyo back from Mnemosyne, looking around to see if there was ANYTHING she could use to anchor her yoyo’s string but there was nothing that she could-

Chat was suddenly in front of her, his face grim and eyes focused. “Cataclysm!!” he shifted his stance and clenched his right hand on the sphere of dark energy that had gathered in his palm as the cement truck rushed at them. He vaguely registered Ladybug yelling, of people screaming around him, but he ignored it, narrowing everything down to the truck and what- 

-PRECISELY- 

-he needed Cataclysm to do. 

Ladybug dove to stand behind him, bracing him as she seemed to realize what he was planning as Chat brought his right hand up and around, slamming his palm to the bumper of the truck, taking the impact and feeling his arm scream at the mass of it, pain ripping through him as he went skidding back into Ladybug, even as the energy of Cataclysm arced over and through the cement truck in a dark wave. 

Metal screeched and corroded, wasting away to nothing but rust; rubber and plastic dried, then cracked into ever shrinking crumbs; in the truck’s drum, cement solidified, then crumbled into a fine powder; glass shattered into glittering sand. 

In the span of all of a second, nearly 30,000 kilos of truck became a cloud of dust, and the very air around it stole almost all the speed from the fine particulate like a jealous child, making it billow and expand like a cartoon cloud. 

Chat smirked. Hollywood smokescreens had nothing on him. 

The two men who’d been trapped in the truck cabin, however, kept their speed and went flying through the cloud, screaming. Only to slam straight into the prepared Ladybug and Chat Noir, who grabbed one driver each, skidding backwards as they absorbed the mens’ inertia before dragging them both towards the CNIT. Chat stumbled to a stop and hissed as he jarred his right arm, pushing the man he’d been dragging after Ladybug and holding his arm in place with his left, because OW. Closing his eyes and clenching his teeth, he pulled his right arm around and tucked his right wrist through his belt above his left hip, pulling it until the wrist guard was wedged in. Wasn’t perfect or even really close, but it should at least keep his arm mostly still and was better than trying to hold it in place with his left. 

His eyes skimmed the massive cloud of dust. He could just barely make out a dark shape near the upper edge that had to be Mnemosyne. A bright glow lanced through the cloud and Chat leapt back and away. 

His ears twitched and he went into a tumble to his right, groaning as he was forced to land on his right shoulder. Gotten too close to the CNIT, he had to try to keep the mostly empty esplanade behind him because… 

Something huge and dark roared through the dust cloud and Chat leapt up and forward. 

Yup, that was a car. A really big car… Actually, maybe it was an SUV or a van. 

He landed, glanced over his shoulder to watch the vehicle smash into the empty space of the esplanade, flip a few times and then he lost track of it in the dust. Chat glanced around, he was probably still in the middle of the smokescreen and the cloud was… very thick here. He looked up and tried to find the dark shape above him again, and realized that he was right in the path of another Mnemosyne’s beams. Before he could even shift his weight, Ladybug’s yoyo lassoed his torso and he was yanked back and away, skidding to a stop on his back at Ladybug’s feet at the very edge of the ever expanding dust cloud. 

Ladybug gave a practiced flick of her wrist and the yoyo released Chat and retracted as Chat flipped up to his feet. “How did you do that? With the cement truck?” 

She could just see his cocky smile out of the corner of her eye. 

“Been practicing on my time off, my Lady. I wanted the truck to be fine dust, and I got fine dust.” He coughed. “A lungful of fine dust, but that’s still better then what the truck would’ve done to anyone it hit and hey, instant smokescreen.” He nodded to where he could see the occasional glowing beam in the depths of the cloud. 

Ladybug chuckled and shook her head. “How’s your arm?” 

“Could be better,” Chat admitted. “Gonna be stiff even after I transform again.” 

Which meant it was really bad now, if Chat thought that the healing that came with de-transforming would only get him to ‘stiff’ at best. 

_BlipBlipBlipBlipBlipBlipBlipBeep_

Ladybug began to spin her yoyo. “I’ve got this. Go de-transform and feed your kwami. I’ll be here when you get back.” 

Chat scowled, but took off running for the nearest building. Ladybug leapt forward and began snapping her yoyo out in quick strikes, hoping to keep the supervillain off balance in the thick dust, and if nothing else forcing Mnemosyne to focus on Ladybug, giving Chat the cover he needed to vanish. There were a lot of restaurants in the area, he had to be able to find a place with cheese nearby, so he’d be back soon, she was certain. 

In the meantime… 

Ladybug kept to the edge of the still expanding dust cloud, snapping her yoyo in for quick strikes, occasionally catching Mnemosyne and dragging her down, keeping her IN the ‘smokescreen’. 

It wouldn’t last forever, as the cloud would soon dissipate, but it should buy her a few minutes before she had to fall back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My headcanon is that the Miraculous wielders get a mild/middling bout of healing and energy boost while transformed (so long as they are transformed, they have a very VERY mild ‘healing factor’). And they get a stronger ‘healing boost’ done by the energies of the transformation proper. It’s not much, but it helps explain a lack of bruising and scratches that they would otherwise likely have after a hard fight.
> 
> De-transforming usually does more of the ‘healing’ aspect with little energy, while transforming tends to be more of an energy boost with little healing done. The Kwamis are in control of this, and can amp the healing or energy boost as they see fit during transformation. ( _after Madame Mort Plagg poured all of the transformation energy into boosting Adrien rather than healing for example_ )
> 
> For me, it’s something that would likely have to exist for ‘tools’ that seem to have been created for SOME type of combat/war… when most of said Miraculous users would not be able to rely on Ladybug’s ‘reset button’ fixing them up after every fight. Maybe Ladybug isn’t active at the time, maybe she’s on the far side of the planet, heck maybe she’s an ENEMY.
> 
> So having it set up that you get basic healing when you de-transform ( _bruises healed, muscles less strained, bones getting a wee jump in setting, etc_ ) could be a matter of life and death, and would definitely be vital in helping hide your secret identity ( _no need to explain odd bruising/scars all the time_ ). 
> 
> The energy boost when they transform to their superhero selves is less headcanon and more ‘I think this may actually BE canon’, just based off what they all get up to and how energized they seem upon transforming, even if they were acting tired in a previous scene.
> 
> Plagg actually exploited this in Madame Mort, purposefully eating as much cheese as he could to recharge himself as much as possible so he could give Adrien as much of an energy boost as he could.
> 
> Chat’s arm is kinda messed up at this moment ( _he took a tractor trailer to the shoulder and then basically jarred his whole arm up by having 30k kilos smash into it at high speeds before cataclysm took it out_ ). While he knows that Plagg will concentrate on healing his arm when he de-transforms, he’s a good enough judge of his own injuries by this point that he knows it’ll be stiff at best when he gets back to the fight.


	11. Chapter 11

Why were there so many PEOPLE?! Chat shoved his way through the crowd, trying to find a shop that was selling cheese, all while keeping an eye out for a place where he could duck out of sight… maybe he could get up onto the roof?

Someone grabbed his right arm and yanked at him, making his vision white out for a frighteningly long second. He caught his balance and stared down at the hand on his Very. Obviously. Injured. Arm. The arm that he was not using, was bracing against his side with his left hand and had the wrist-there-of shoved through his belt. He followed the hand that was still holding him back to its owner and found himself aiming a glare at a middle-aged woman with pale skin, brown eyes and close cropped fuchsia hair. The hair threw him off for a moment, especially when combined with the otherwise ‘all business’ look and attire. Then she tugged at his arm again and Chat couldn’t stop the deep growl that escaped him, letting it rumble in his chest and rattle in his throat. If the lady wasn’t hurt or trying to help, he was going to SHOVE her so help- 

The woman let go and backed up fast, eyes wide… and knocked the cameraman behind her off balance for a moment. 

Oh great. NOW he recognized her. It was the nosy reporter woman that had been harassing Monsieur D'Argencourt back in March. What was her name? 

_BlipBlipBlipBlipBlipBeep_

Didn’t matter. Chat looked around. There! Cheese shop! Now he just- 

“Chat Noir! Just a few questions!! It will only take a moment of your time!” 

...Really? 

“I’m sorry, but this isn’t the time, I have to…” Chat trailed off. Um. Okay, how was he supposed to… ‘ _I need to go recharge the magic_ ’ wasn’t something he wanted to say on camera, not when it might give people… ideas. 

“Just a few questions! The people-” 

There was a microphone being shoved in his face, and a camera behind that and Chat backed up a stride. His default response, hardwired into him after more than a decade of modeling of ‘do what the cameraman tells you’ was about as FAR from the situationally proper response as it was possible to be. Where was Ladybug to smile and take the spotlight and answer and evade cleverly when he needed her?! 

…Something crashed into the side of the building, making everything shake. 

Oh. Right. 

The reporter and cameraman turned to look for the source of the crash ( _which looked to be a motorcycle that was poking halfway through the wall_ ), the cameraman panning over the screaming crowd, and Chat took that as his chance to dive into the cheese shop and jump over the counter, sitting down so he wouldn’t be spotted. 

He leaned his head back against the counter, and closed his eyes for a second as he pressed a hand against his throbbing shoulder. 

“You know, you’re not supposed to be back here.” 

Chat’s eyes snapped open and he looked up, and met the eyes of a young woman, who was hiding behind the counter as well… and was wearing a uniform marked with the logo of the cheese shop. “I-” 

The woman looked out towards the entrance of the cheese shop, adjusting the scarf she had wrapped around her head. “I’m pretty sure we can make an exception for you.” She looked down at Chat Noir, frowning. “It sounds… pretty bad out there.” 

“It is. I…” Chat glanced around and relaxed slightly when he saw the door to the back of the shop. He could probably get to the employee hallways that connected the various shops of the building through there and from there he could find a place to hide. “Look, this is gonna sound weird, but do you have any camembert?” 

_BlipBlipBlipBeep_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

The dust cloud was getting too diffuse to do much good anymore. 

Ladybug backed up threw her yoyo and a moment later was on the roof of the Les Quatre Temps building. She SHOULD have a few seconds before Mnemosyne realized she wasn’t in the dust cloud, so that she could summon Lucky Ch- 

NOPE! No! That was a truck! That was not a few seconds of time!! 

Ladybug dove to the side and sprinted down the front of the building as the truck slammed into the wall where she’d been standing, punching through the wall. This was BAD. This was so very, very bad. 

As she ran, Ladybug kept half her attention focused behind her. Mnemosyne was following her out of the dust cloud. Ladybug set her jaw. Alright. Time to get to the Grande Arche’s roof. That should buy her the time Chat would need to feed his Kwami and get back in the fight. 

Ladybug darted to the middle of the esplanade and waited, spinning her yoyo. This time, when Mnemosyne threw a car at her, Ladybug didn’t dodge. Instead she lassoed the car and spun around, bracing her feet as the mass of it almost pulled her off her feet- 

And sent the car flying RIGHT back into Mnemosyne’s face, catching the Akumatized supervillain flatfooted and square in the face. 

Taking advantage of the small slice of time she’d bought herself, Ladybug sprinted down the esplanade, gathered herself up and jumped as high as she could, throwing her yoyo at the top of the Grande Arche. The yoyo shattered two window panes, wrapping around the strut that the windows had shared. A solid tug and the yoyo’s line retracted and for a second Ladybug flew. 

She saw it coming in the reflections of the glass ahead of her. 

She retracted her yoyo and twisted, and just managed to dodge the first beam, which raced past and through the window her yoyo had shattered, hitting somewhere inside the Grande Arche. 

Ladybug threw her yoyo towards the center of the Grande Arche, managing to catch a window about halfway down. She pulled, frantic to get out of the air. The energy of the first beam visibly raced through all of the Grande Arche and the lights FLARED… began to flicker on and off madly. The tug pulled her out of the path of the second beam- 

But put her right in the path of the third. 

It caught her, slammed into her, and Ladybug lost control of her swing, flailing wildly as the energy arched over and THROUGH her, burning and blazing, tearing a scream from her throat. 

Her arms spasmed, unintentionally unhooking and retracting her yoyo, the line tangling her as she spun out of control and went sailing through one of the windows that lined the interior of the Grande Arche. She hit and flipped, bouncing and tearing through the partitions of the office space within before finally skidding to a stop in a small crumpled pile of shivering limbs under the flickering and dying lights.


	12. Chapter 12

Marinette pulled at the black spotted red suit that she was wearing, tugging at the collar before she tried to pull the mask off before finally giving up with a wince. It was obvious that whatever she was wearing, it wasn’t coming off. She wrapped her arms around her chest as she looked around the office building she’d landed in. The lights flickered again, then suddenly cut off, leaving the afternoon sun streaming through the window she’d fallen through as the only light source.

“Where are you, ma chérie…” A voice sang, soft and lilting. A woman with auburn hair wearing green robes that flowed like ink in water floated to the window. Marinette backed up, stopping as her back hit the wall of windows. The woman smiled, a purple glowing outline like a stylized butterfly glowing around her face as she advanced, backlit by the afternoon sun. 

“Just give me your earrings, ma chérie, and all will be-” 

Glass shattered behind Marinette and a shadow leapt past her, tackling the floating woman to the floor. Their momentum flipped them over and the person- boy?- in the black leather suit lashed out with both feet, sending the woman out the window she'd come through on the opposite wall. The shadow spun to face her and Marinette screamed. 

Those were not human eyes. 

The boy jerked back and away and Marinette took her chance to spin on her heel and run like buggery. 

“Hey! No, wait!” 

Marinette sped up, hitting the door to the office space and stumbling out into the dark hall. Looking around, she could just make out the sign for the stairs and she dove towards it. 

“Ladybug!” 

Get out, get out, get out, get OUT… it was a constant mantra as she ran down stairs she could only just see in the dark, hanging onto the railing for dear life. Where was she? What was going ON?! One second she’d been walking to school, laughing at Nino’s impression of their teacher… and then she was in an office building during a blackout wearing a leotard that she couldn’t TAKE OFF and there were flying women and boys with CAT EYES and- 

“Wait! I just-! Ladybug, stop! It’s okay!!” 

Boys with inhuman cat eyes who were still CHASING HER!! Marinette jumped the last few steps and landed in an out of control tumble, crashing through the door and into what looked to be another office. Scrambling to her feet she ran deeper into the- 

_CRASH_

…owwwwwww. That was a glass wall. Marinette picked herself up and managed to get back to her feet, running again and rebounding off a table, getting tangled in a chair before finally running headlong into a door. She yanked it open and dove through- 

And ran straight into the filing cabinets within. Groaning, she turned to leave, then froze as she heard the sound of a door being slammed open somewhere behind her. Thinking quickly, she pulled the door mostly closed behind her as quietly as she could. 

Marinette ducked to her knees and peeked through the crack in the door. With the light from the windows, she could actually see… well, not well, but decently, she realized as her eyes adjusted. In the room, a black shape stood, looking around slowly. Marinette covered her mouth to try and quiet her breathing, then straight up held her breath, ducking down lower as he turned and looked in her direction. She saw the ears on the top of his head twitch and rotate and his tail flicked before he shifted and turned, his back to the door that Marinette hid behind. His ears twitched again and he slowly walked out of Marinette’s line of sight. 

Marinette let herself breathe, keeping her hand over her mouth to try and muffle the sound. She heard the sound of glass being moved around, but no footsteps. A moment later, the cat-boy walked past the door, silent as a shadow. He moved closer to the side of the office where the windows were, and now Marinette could see more than just vague shapes and shadows. 

He looked… about her age, maybe a year or two older. He was lean and pale, with wildly mussed blond hair. And he was wearing a black, leather, skin-tight suit. His tail twitched and then lashed and a glint of light at the end made Marinette look closer. 

It was a BELT?! 

How could it be a belt? She could SEE IT moving, and it wasn’t… limp and dragging, but instead held in a steady curve behind him… the tip still twitching. Marinette’s eyes drifted back up to the cat ears on top of the boy’s head, watching as they slowly rotated and twitched. Were they fake-but-not too? 

The leather armored boy sighed suddenly, shoulders slumping. “If I come over there, are you going to scream again?” 

Marinette squeaked, clapped both hands over her mouth, and backed up and away from the door until she hit something behind her. He had to be guessing, he HAD to be guessing. 

There were no footsteps, but then again, she’d seen him walking around soundlessly before, so that didn’t mean mu- 

The door swung open slowly. Marinette looked up from the black armored boot, up along the shadow of a leg, past the belt and then the armor like sections on his chest, past… was that a BELL? 

“I’m not going to hurt you.” The voice was soft, gentle. “I’m going to come in now, okay?” 

No. No, it was NOT okay. 

“…Right.” He didn’t come in. Instead he slowly ducked down until he was sitting in the doorway, leaning back against the door jamb, his left side to her, hands resting, loosely curled up to hide his claws, on his thighs. Marinette glanced at his face, and gulped. 

She hadn’t really… gotten a look at his face yet, outside of that first moment when all she’d really registered had been NOT HUMAN. It was still dark, but Marinette’s eyes had mostly adjusted now, and with the door open there was a lot more light in her hiding spot in what looked to be the filing room. 

He had a black colombina mask on, as opposed to the domino mask she was wearing… covering most of his face in it's dark angles and his eyes really WERE cat-eyes… mostly. Kinda. Honestly, her first thought was of that old Disney film, The Lion King. What would normally be white in human eyes was green for him, and he did have irises they were just… almost the exact same color as the rest of his eyes. 

Scar. It reminded her of Scar, that’s why she’d thought of The Lion King. She glanced down at his hands, and the very dangerous looking claws that tipped his fingers, and then away, looking around the room, wishing that there was another door or way out. But there was nothing, and so, reluctantly, Marinette returned her attention to the dark shape in the doorway and bit her lip as she met his eyes again. The cat-slit pupils, currently expanded in a wide oval, just added to the whole creepy and bad-guy and NOT RIGHT look. 

Eyes that suddenly closed as the cat-boy sighed and let his head rest back against the door jamb. “You don’t know who I am, do you, my Lady?” 

My Lady? Was this guy serious? 

After a minute, the boy sighed again. “Okay. …You’re scared, and confused, and that’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you, I’m here to protect you.” 

“Protect me from what?” 

“Mnemosyne at the moment.” 

“What?” 

“Green floaty evil lady that was attacking you upstairs. You… are missing about a year of your memories, Ladybug.” 

“I what?!” There it was again. ‘Ladybug’. Why did he keep calling her that? 

The boy reached up to his chest with his left hand and pulled one of the zippers down, then pulled out an ipod, putting it down on his thigh while he unzipped the other pocket and pulled out a red yoyo and a four-leaf-clover charm bracelet. The yoyo joined the ipod on his thigh, while the luck charm bracelet was carefully tucked back into his right pocket. He offered both the ipod and yoyo to Marinette silently and when she shied away from his claws, he put them down on the ground and nudged them towards her, then curled both hands up in his lap, closing his eyes. 

Marinette waited, half certain it was somehow a trap, but eventually she reached forward and snagged the ipod, then backed up again to stand against the filing cabinets, not wanting to stay sitting down. “What am I looking at?” 

“The date. My ipod connects to the cloud, so I get bits of news and updates if you hit the Home button. …The circle in the middle.” 

“I know how to work an ipod,” Marinette muttered, scowling. 

“My apologies.” He was looking down at the yoyo, and when he seemed to realize that she didn’t intend to take the black-spotted toy, he scooped it up and put it back in his pocket before closing his eyes again. 

Marinette eyed the cat-boy, but then turned her attention to the ipod, gasping when she saw the year. “But it… it’s 2013…” she started looking through the news and updates, scrolling through the list of text notifications. She kept seeing messages about a ‘Ladybug’ and ‘Chat Noir’ and a ‘Papillon’… And ‘Akumas’ and other really WEIRD things. 

“No. It really is 2014. …Kinda wish I’d had my phone and not my ipod, you could check the net then and stuff, Ladybug.” 

“Stop calling my LADYBUG! That isn’t my name!” 

The boys eyes snapped open and he looked up at Marinette as if shocked. He started to raise his hands as if to cover his ears, then froze, hands drifting from where his real ears were probably hidden under his hair towards the leather cat ears and then back again. “Wait… I can’t- Ladybug, yo-” 

“My name is Ma-!” 

She was suddenly pressed back against the filing cabinet, two clawed hands clamped over her mouth. “WaitWaitWaitWaitWaitNo!!” The ipod hit the floor as his eyes went wide and he let go of her, starting to back away even as she grabbed the cat-boy’s wrists. 

He went chalk white when she grabbed his right wrist, and Marinette let go of his left wrist to grab his right arm by the elbow while she tightened her grip at his wrist and TWISTED his arm when she saw that. “No… no ARRrrgh… La… my Lady, please. Ah! It… Secret. Secret identity, that’s why weeaaaAAAH-” he went down heavily to his knees. He started to raise his left hand then let it drop to the floor. “…why we… wear masks.” 

She stopped twisting, although she kept her hands on his arm. 

“You… it’s important… important to you. So important.” His shoulders slumped and his head bowed and his left hand clenched before he made it go limp again. “‘No one can know who we really are. Not even us,’” he said, as if he were reciting a Universal Law. “I know you don’t… don’t remember. But you can’t tell me, or anyone, who you are.” 

He gasped, closing his eyes, when Marinette unconsciously clenched her hands. “It’s why we have masks. I’m sorry I scared you. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t… couldn’t let you say your real name and I didn’t think- You’d never forgive yourself if you’d said your name.” he glanced up at her, eyes pleading. “It’s vital. Vital to you and please stop crying, I didn’t mean to scare you, I just had to stop you, I won’t do it again, I’m really not scary and first Alya and now you and just… could everyone stop crying please?” 

Marinette gave the boy’s arm a savage twist and leapt over him when he fell to the floor, rushing out of the filing room and making a break for the stairs again.

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

> **Notes** ( _Which were too long for the notes block… in what seems to be becoming a trend_ ):  
>  I actively dislike the ‘no one must know’ trope. I just want to get that out there. I borderline HATE this trope when it’s taken to the extreme that we see in Miraculous, because it isn’t a GOOD THING long term. You NEED a support crew, especially when saving the city on a daily basis. A support crew provides you with moral aid if nothing else, gives you people who you can rant to/with to vent healthily. They can cover for you, give alibies, patch you up if you’re hurt, help with work/projects/school when you run low on time, help you research information when needed, and the million and one other problems that spring up from the dangerous work that comes from superheroing. 
> 
> Now should MOST people know your secret identity? 
> 
> Oh **HELL** no. As Adrien said earlier, there are a LOT of messed up people in the world and there is no way that ‘everyone’ should know. 99.999% of the population should not be trusted with this sort of information. 
> 
> But you should have SOME people that you can trust. And if you’re as young as the lead duo, at least ONE person in that support crew should be an ADULT. Seriously, adults are useful and have seen/done more than teens and if nothing else they aren’t trying to deal with a crises while their bodies are going through growth spurts/hormonal surges. 
> 
> BUT. 
> 
> Due to Tikki’s guidance and her own mentality, Marinette has made the decision to follow her head and not her heart and keep her identity secret from everyone. Mari isn’t keeping her identity secret because she’s insecure or she thinks people won’t like her or she feels she isn’t ‘worthy’… she’s keeping it a secret because she knows people would be in danger if everyone found out AND because Tikki told her that she was supposed to. ( _For me, this is a case of Tikki’s insanely long lifespan and experience backfiring to an extent. It worked out in the end… most times… and the ‘don’t tell anyone at first’ usually works so she sticks with it. She obviously willing to let SOME people know given how she leads Marinette to Master Fu in Volpina and she’s 100% fine with HIM knowing_ )  
> 
> 
> I don’t LIKE that, but I’m going to respect it ( _at least for now_ ). I likely will have the lead-duo reveal happen at some point in the near future, but not in this fic and not in the next. ( _and, spoiler, it will be Ladybug discovering Chat’s identity first to respect her decision-what she chooses to do upon finding out is thus in her court_ ).  
>  I’m also willing to wait because Mari has more of a support net then Adrien does.  
>  Mari has two WONDERFUL, caring, supporting parents. She helps out in the bakery, but isn’t required to do any work, it’s more a case of ‘if you want to help that’s fine, if you want to go hang out all day that’s fine too’.  
>  Her only responsibilities outside of superheroing are school. Even being class president doesn’t honestly add much to her workload ( _It’s middle school, and after Darkblade we don’t actually see her DOING anything extra because… well, she’s only CLASS president, not school president and again-middle school_ ).  
>  She has her designs, yes, but those are things that she does in her free time because she loves it.  
>  and yes, being Ladybug is a huge responsibility and eats up a LOT of her time ( _and puts her in danger fairly often_ ), but the thing is she still has that fantastic safety net and supporting home to rely on. If she’s too tired from a battle, she can simply not work on her designs and not help out in the bakery for a few days to get some extra sleep, and as we see in Jakady it takes a LOT of infractions at school before her parents ‘put their foot down’ and when they do it’s a VERY light Grounding sentence. 
> 
> Actually I currently headcanon that part of the reason for the divide in opinions that Tikki and Plagg have is actually due to the TYPE of people they tend to choose as their Weilders. In my headcanon, Tikki tends to aim for well-adjusted, happy, caring people with a large, well-grounded, support base... because that's the kind of person who is least likely to start misusing the Ladybug powers. Plagg tends to choose people who have been beaten down and have little to no support group/are in bad situations but are good people DESPITE that... because Plagg's found that's the type who's least likely to misuse the powers HE grants.  
>  Which leads directly to the divide.  
>  Tikki's chosen already HAVE a 'support crew' that will love/support them even with the secrets. Ladybugs thus generally don't NEED to expand/get support and thus don't have to give away the secret/give their trust where it might be unfounded.  
>  Plagg's chosen do NOT, and thus Plagg encourages them to find people to trust, to share the secret with a select few so that they'll GAIN a 'support crew'.  
>  And both are so old that they don't really think to explain this to their Chosen OR each other, and it's become a point of disconnect between them. 
> 
> Granted, lunging forward and slapping a hand over an already freaked out kid’s mouth so she doesn’t reveal her secret identity isn’t exactly the BEST thing to have done, in fact Chat was being a bit of an idiot… but Chat knows how important ‘no one must know, not even us’ is to Ladybug and he acted to protect her secret. He just… didn’t think it THROUGH beyond ‘no, can’t hear this’ and given we KNOW he can ‘hear’ from both sets of ears… covering his ears wasn’t an option because he can’t cover his real ears or his fake-ears at the same time, and frankly his hearing is good enough that even if covering his human only ears was an option he’d STILL have heard her name. Frankly? He panicked… and was promptly punished for it… with Alya he just got guilt tripped, here he gets his currently bad arm wrenched up. Actually worse than Marinette MEANT to, she doesn’t know that she’s super strong at the moment. Yes, Chat could have gotten himself loose before he was hurt, but he would have risked scaring Ladybug to do it. 
> 
> And yes, if I had the characters reversed ( _where if Ladybug retained her memories and was trying to keep a Chat who lost his from revealing his name_ ) Ladybug would have gone to cover Chat’s mouth too as it’s in character for her as well and she likely would have gotten guilt tripped if not given one hell of a shove.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s 2014 because Mayor was re-elected in in Darkblade. The Paris Municipal Elections take place every six years and the only options for a time frame recent to when the show came out was 2014, and then 2020. Annnnnd 2020 was too far in the ‘future’ for me, so this is basically taking place one year ‘earlier’ then when the show was released  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
> I made an edit to this chapter on 10/31/16.  
> While I MEANT to show that Adrien keeps the luck charm Marinette gave him in Gamer in one of his pockets as Chat Noir ( _It is, so far as Adrien knows, one of the ONLY gifts he's ever received from anyone, and to top it off, it's a gift from a FRIEND. So he's talked to Plagg and figured out how to have the luck charm bracelet move from his over-shirt pocket as Adrien to his right pocket as Chat Noir_ ) I actually FORGOT TO WRITE IT... and realized it a few days ago and thus - quick adding the tiny bit that WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THERE now.  
> Basically... I dun goofed and hadda fix it ^_^;;  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
> Annnnd then I made ANOTHER edit on 11/06/16  
> I was looking up types of masks and found out that Chat Noir is actually wearing a COLOMBINA mask, not a domino mask =_=;; Hence, edit.


	13. Chapter 13

She made it almost five more floors before her luck ran out.

Halfway down the stairs between floors, Marinette froze when a blaze of gold light blasted the door of the floor below off its hinges. The door hit and rebounded off the far wall, and golden energy arched all over the stairwell, making Marinette’s hair frizz and the hand she had on the railing go numb. She didn’t stay to see what the cause was, she just spun on her heel and ran back UP the stairs and through the door she’d just passed into yet ANOTHER office building. Or Office floor. What was it called when it was an office space but it was only one floor of a big building?! ( _What building was she IN anyway?! Was there anything but offices? Was she in a horror movie universe or something where no matter where she went she’d be in soulless office buildings being chased by floating evil women and cat-eyed boys!?_ ) 

This one was far less open a floor plan than the first one she’d woken up in… not even as open as the second she’d run into either. It was just a long hall with door after door. Marinette groaned and ran as fast as she could down the hall, taking the first turning to get her out of the line of sight of the stairwell, then diving down the next hallway she could. The building was big, there HAD to be more than one stairwell, so all she had to do was get to the far side and find the OTHER stairwell and go down IT until she got to the ground floor and then she could… Go somewhere. Probably into another building. …alright, maybe she should start thinking about ‘where do I go when I am out of the horror movie office building’ as she went. 

There was a burst of light and the sound of a crash behind her. Whoever, or whatever, was chasing her was coming. 

Marinette turned down another hall and stumbled to a stop with a yelp when she realized that NOW, of all times, she’d found what looked to be the meeting room. The space was huge, almost cavernous. Chairs and tables for more than a hundred people, all facing a back wall with a raised area and podium, the wall on the left covered in windows. 

“Ah, there you are, ma chérie…” 

Marinette spun around and found herself facing down the floating woman from before. She backed up as the woman advanced, her green dress and auburn hair billowing out around her. 

“Who are you? What do you want?!” 

“I am Mnemosyne, and what I want is to strip away your memories.” Purple light flared, forming a mask of… a butterfly?... around Mnemosyne’s face and the woman’s head snapped the side as if in pain. 

The cat-boy had been telling the truth. Marinette looked around, desperate for a way to get out of here. THERE! A door at the front of the meeting room, near the podium! 

“…Give me your Miraculous stone!” 

Marinette took off running towards the door, keeping half her attention over her shoulder. She dove to the floor as Mnemosyne sent a glowing beam of energy at her. It hit the podium and the computer on it shorted out in a cascade of sparks. Marinette scrambled to her feet and tried to get to the door, then screamed as one of the tables was wrenched off the floor and slammed into her, driving all the air from her lungs and sending her flying to smash into… and THROUGH… the wall of windows. 

Time slowed and sound vanished. 

The air around her was filled with a trillion glittering shards. Marinette stared, unable to breathe, unable to think, unable to move as the distance between her and the room she’d been in slowly increased. Mnemosyne smiled, eyes wild, spreading her arms wide as she revealed in her victory. 

Something slim and silver smashed into Mnemosyne’s back, the impact tearing the chalice and oil lamp out of her hands as the woman shot across the meeting room to slam THOUGH the wall that was behind the podium in a massive cloud of dust and debris. 

The silver staff retracted and a black shape leapt out of the shattered windows after Marinette. He slammed into her, sending both into a tail spin. “Hold on!” Marinette wrapped her arms around him as the small silver baton in his left hand extended impossibly, hitting the distant ground below… and suddenly they were falling at an angle, leaving the glass shards behind. Marinette had just enough time to realize that there was another wall of windows ahead before the boy twisted so that he hit the glass instead of her- 

And then they were bouncing off an office desk, and smashing through a door and into a dark hall, the impact knocking the two of them apart. 

Marinette scrambled to her feet and looked back the way they’d come. She blinked and looked up. Yup, that was a roof above the massive clear space. …Why was she in the Grande Arche?! Movement above and across the empty center of the cube caught her eye and she ducked back as she saw Mnemosyne. 

“We can’t stay here,” Marinette realized, looking at the window they’d broken. It would be painfully obvious to Mnemosyne where they’d gone. She turned around and found the cat-boy standing, staring at her. 

He held out a hand to her, and Marinette couldn’t help the small step back that she took. 

“I only want to keep you safe. Mnemosyne obviously does not,” he said softly. “I’m not asking you to not be afraid, or even to trust me… Just, please, let me protect you.” 

A beam of energy tore through the door in-between the two of them and both Marinette and the cat-boy jumped back, then looked the way they’d come. 

Mnemosyne was heading their way, floating across the yawning void, chalice and oil lamp back in her hands. 

Marinette stared at the floating woman, then looked at the shadow with his inhuman eyes. She shied away from his hand, but when he started heading down the hallway, she followed his lead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re headed into the home stretch for this fic now!! …I have no idea how LONG said home stretch will be as I don’t have a buffer at the moment, but still, homestretch!  
> Related to this, in warning, I’m going to take about a week or two in-between Mnemosyne and the next fic so I can get a bit of a buffer. I’m working on editing a 50,000 page science paper IRL ( _which means I have to research/fact check all the data in the paper on top of grammar/spelling edits_ ) and as a result I only have a few hours each week to work on these fanfics and having a buffer will make it a bit easier on me.  
> On a side note. The building is empty because the moment Mnemosyne arrived at La Defense, the Grande Arche evacuated, so people were already leaving the building when Mnemosyne’s blast shut down the power. Most of the battle takes place in the upper floors, which were fully evacuated. If Marinette!Ladybug had gotten lower, she would have started running into people, but she only got about 5 floors down and initially hit near the top floor and never got below the halfway point.  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
>  
> 
> Poor Marinette. I basically dumped her back to her Origins self here and she’s just so… *huggles the poor kiddo*
> 
>  
> 
> In origins, Marinette was shown to be as positive, sweet and generous as she is in later episodes. She’s also just as… enthusiastic. ( _That girl really gets worked up about things in both a positive and negative manner_ ). She’s a bit non-confrontational, and we see that she tends to back down rather than stand and fight with Chloé ( _a trend that actually continues on, actually. Look at how she backed down about the scarf because it made Adrien happy_ ). She also doesn’t know how to do things half-way. It’s 0% effort or over-9000% and no in-between for everything from her designs, to her crush on Adrien, to her work as Ladybug, to her dislike of liars. 
> 
>  
> 
> While she comes across as shy ( _and I tend to shorthand it as ‘shy’_ ) she… actually isn’t shy at all. She just isn’t as boisterous and forward or dominating as Alya or Chloé. Actually ‘retiring’ is a pretty apt description of her. She tends to avoid being the center of attention, is modest, tends to blush and change the subject when complimented or flustered and while she likes people watching… She’s an extrovert, as she seems to seek out people to be with and is recharged emotionally/mentally by being with/around people… but she’s a Retiring Extrovert’, which is a rare-ish combination. She’s more than willing to take charge of a situation, and indeed seems to default to ‘command’ when stressed. ( _Honestly it’s a good thing Adrien is shy, introverted and so willing to follow her lead, there would have been strife between the duo if that wasn’t the case_ )
> 
>  
> 
> Becoming Ladybug ended up giving her a nice ol’ confidence boost and kick out the proverbial door, but it only built on who she was before-hand. She is SMART and clever, a cunning strategist and utterly sure of herself ( _90% of the time, but she’s a TEEN so that’s normal_ ). She doesn’t always look before she leaps, and she does sometimes get over-confident… but that’s okay too ^_^
> 
>  
> 
> And then I went and basically took her from before she got that confidence boost and plunked her in a situation that would make most any 13/14 year old cut and run. ( _seriously she was apparently just teleported to an office building with flickering lights, there’s a FLOATING woman threatening her, she’s in weird clothes and then there’s a guy with inhuman eyes and so on. Yeah, ‘year younger’ Mari bolted, she has COMMON SENSE and would survive a horror movie ^_^_ )
> 
>  
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
>  
> 
> That said… I see a lot of people who tend to go to extremes with Marinette… either focusing only on Mari’s weak points, many of which have faded or she’s worked past, although there are some she hasn’t… or going to the other extreme and only focusing on her good/strong points and pretending or outright claiming that she doesn’t HAVE any weaknesses or flaws anymore.
> 
>  
> 
> Honestly, what I love is that Mari, at season’s end, has become such a strong, confident teenager- but one that still has flaws! Yes, she’s pretty much solved her confidence issues ( _girl is certain of who she is and what she can do_ ) and her clumsiness ( _likely due in equal parts to being more active/fit AND her higher confidence levels_ ), but she still has flaws and that’s OKAY.


	14. Chapter 14

“So… WHERE ARE WE GOING?!” Marinette finally demanded. Ten minutes of running through offices and UP stairwells ( _why up? There had to be a reason and it wasn’t like her initial plan of heading downstairs had been very successful, but STILL_ ) and what little patience she had with the situation had evaporated.

The cat-boy didn’t answer, pausing by a door and tilting his head as his ears twitched and rotated. He nodded and opened the door and ushered Marinette through to the hallway beyond and from there headed over to… the elevators? 

“You know, the power is out. We can’t use the elevators.” 

“Well, we can, just not the way you’re thinking, my Lady,” he said, and she could just see the white flash of his teeth as he smiled. Reaching the elevators he slid his claws into the gap between the landing-doors and started to pry them open, then stopped. His head thumped against the doors and he let out a long, slow, whimper, his right arm shaking. 

…And that was her fault, wasn’t it? 

He took several long, slow breaths, then started to pry the landing-doors open again. Marinette reached over and grabbed the right hand door the second the gap was big enough for her fingers, and was surprised at how easy it was to pull it open. Green eyes gleamed in the dark as he stared down at her, and Marinette wished she could see his expression. 

One of his ears twitched and he looked back the way they’d come. He pulled his baton off the back of his belt and held it out into the dark void of the elevator hoistway. It extended down, down, down… and finally there was a faint ‘clunk’ in the darkness. He nodded and held out a hand to her, and said nothing when she shied away from his claws again. Marinette bit her lip, then cautiously took his hand. He pulled her close, wrapping his right arm around her as he held onto the baton with his left hand and stepped out into the void, balancing on the pole in the center of the shaft. He kicked out with a foot at something underneath the landing-doors, and the doors closed, and the world went pitch black. 

“Going up…” he said and Marinette felt them moving, felt the air brushing past her face as they rose. It was kinda freaky, because while she could feel them moving, she had no idea how fast, or slow, they were moving. 

“Can you… see anything?” 

“I can see in the dark,” his voice answered. 

Okay then. At least they weren’t going to smack into the underside of an elevator car or the top of the hoistway shaft. 

“Why up?” Marinette asked. 

“We can get over to one of the nearby buildings, but it’s easier if we do it from higher up,” the voice in the dark answered. “And I’m hoping Mnemosyne is expecting us to head down, so maybe we’ll lose her for a bit.” 

Oh. That made sense. …Wait. 

“We’re in the Grande Arche, right?” 

“Yes.” 

“How can we… the other buildings are so far away…” 

“Easier to show you then explain, my Lady.” 

There was a blast of energy that tore through a landing-door several stories below and the cat-boy yelped in pain as the hoistway was flooded with light, energy arcing over the walls of the shaft. 

Marinette kicked wildly at the door that she could now see below them thanks to the bright energy and SOMETHING that she hit moved and the landing-door opened. She threw her weight forward, sending the two of them tumbling out of the shaft… and a beam of light roared through the space they’d been a moment before. 

“Come on!” she grabbed the boy’s shoulders and hauled him to his feet and, seeing that he had his eyes closed, one hand pressing against them, dragged him down the hall towards the first door she could see. He shrank his baton and clipped it behind his back even as he let her lead him, shaking his head and rubbing at his eyes. “Why are you covering your e- …oh.” 

“Yeah. …..aaaaaahhhggh, that backfired, it’s all just SPOTS right now.” 

“Okay, so to get to the next building what do we need HERE?” 

“Windows. Windows that you can see another building from… another skyscraper would be best.” 

Marinette nodded and kept running, one hand on a leather-armored shoulder as she lead the still blinded cat-boy, turning down hallways randomly. Hopefully there would be another meeting room or a guest area or SOMETHING… 

Three hallways later and they found what looked to be a waiting area. The cat-boy jogged over to the window and looked out before nodding. “Alright, this’ll do.” He hit the window pane with his clawed finger tips and the glass shattered. He reached into his pocket and held the black-spotted red yoyo to Marinette again. 

“…Why do you keep trying to give me that?” 

“Because it’s yours.” 

“…A yoyo.” 

The boy smiled and continued to hold the yoyo out. “It’s magic. Like my baton.” 

Marinette grumbled, because of COURSE her ‘magic item’ was a YOYO and not something cool and… normalish… like a baton. 

…And had she SERIOUSLY just had the thought of a ‘magic item’ as a SERIOUS LIFE OPTION?! …Wait. Did this mean she was an anime ‘magic girl’? When had she genre hopped from reality to horror to ANIME?! 

… 

Did that mean that the cat-boy was also an anime magic girl? 

… 

Later. She would ask later. 

Marinette reached out for the yoyo and paused for a second, staring at his claws, before she took a deep breath and took the toy from him. She slid the ring onto the middle finger of her right hand and gave the toy an experimental drop and pull. Well, it yoyoed. Yay? 

“Now what?” 

A crash from behind them made both jump, and Marinette started to turn, and found a massive computer server racing towards her- 

She screamed and jerked away… and suddenly there was black armor between her and the computer as her self-proclaimed protector took the blow… and spun his baton into a translucent silver shield to block the bolt of energy that had been following the server. 

There was a sunburst of light, and the cat-boy slammed his baton into the computer server and THREW the machine back at the temporarily stunned Mnemosyne. 

“Throw your yoyo at the top of that building!!” he shouted, pointing at the Coeur Défense. 

“What?!” There was NO WAY that this was going to wo- 

“Trust me!” 

Mnemosyne started to get to her feet, and the black clad boy grabbed one of the tables with his left hand and threw it at her, the chairs that had been at the table following in rapid succession. 

Marinette set, wound up and pitched the yoyo like a baseball- 

And stared, jaw dropping, as the tiny red toy raced across the distance and wrapped around… something… on top of the Coeur Défense. 

She tugged at the line to see if she actually HAD hooked something that far awa- 

“No! Wait, don’t do that yet!” 

_Vhiizzzz!_

Marinette was ripped off her feet and into the air even as she turned to look at the boy, racing towards the distant skyscraper, screaming. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! It took me over 3 chapters BUT I FINALLY GOT THEM OUT OF THE BUILDING!  
> …Granted, Ladybug/Marinette does not currently know that she even HAS kinetic/physics bending abilities, much less how to USE them sooooo…  
> …  
> But hey! No longer in endless-office-building!  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
> I initially had notes about the Season 2 Spoilers here, but they were too big and unwieldy... Check [Chapter 3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8189071/chapters/18909044%22) of the Series Bible to read and comment please!!
> 
> BUT because I had said Spoilers ( _although I had a nice long space after the Spoiler warning..._ )  
> PLEASE Be aware that there ARE spoilers in the comments for this chapter. Proceed and read the comments at your discretion!  
>  **IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SPOILERS SCROLL AWAY NOW!! PAST THIS POINT BE ~~DRAGONS~~ Spoilers… I meant spoilers…**


	15. Chapter 15

Marinette’s concept of ‘the most terrifying thing possible’ had been forced through a rapid evolution in the last half hour or so. First it had been being teleported through space and time and having CREEPY EVIL PEOPLE attack her, then it had been running through buildings with evil people chasing her AND GETTING THROWN OUT OF THE WINDOW OF THE TOP FLOORS OF SKYSCRAPERS… and now-

She went sailing up and up and up towards the Coeur Défense. Marinette yelped and yanked at the yoyo’s string as she arced several stories over the roof of the building. To high, she was too high, she wasn’t going to land on the roof she was going to go PAST the building!!! 

…but instead of pulling her down to the relative safety of the roof… the yoyo unhooked and retracted. 

That wasn’t what she’d wanted to happen!!! STUPID MAGIC YOYO!! 

Marinette twisted and tried to get her yoyo back in her hand so she could throw it BACK AT THE BUILDING that she was now FLYING PAST… and ended up tangled in the cord. 

NO!!! No No No No No NONONONONO!!!! 

Marinette tried to get the cord unwrapped. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to die in a future she didn’t know and she didn’t want to die running from something she didn’t understand and she’d seen movies she could imagine how much the landing was going to HURT and SHE DIDN’T WANT TO DIE!! 

The roof of the EDC Paris Business School was rushing up to meet her and Marinette curled up into a ball with a sound that was half a scream and half a so- 

He slammed into her like a missile, pulling her against his chest, one arm wrapped around her back, the other around her head as he curled up around her and flipped them both in mid-air so that black leather took the impact. They hit the top of the Sports Management School and even with her protector taking the brunt of the impact, the force of it still drove the air out of Marinette’s lungs as they BOUNCED right up and over the railing and crash landed three tiers down. 

The two rolled across the rooftop and hit the cement railing, finally coming to a stop. 

They laid still for a long time. Marinette wasn’t certain how long… a few minutes? Maybe longer… before the arms that were wrapped around her let go, and the cat-boy groaned. Marinette took a slow breath in, then let it out. 

She was alive. 

She shifted and cautiously sat up. She felt… bruised… but nothing more. The yoyo string was slack now, and she cautiously scooted over, out of the loops that had puddled around her. A small tug of the string and the yoyo retracted back and smacked into her palm. 

The cat-boy offered another soft groan and Marinette reached over to check him without thinking. He blinked at her, but otherwise didn’t react to Marinette’s cautious check. …It… he didn’t LOOK or feel like he’d broken anything, and both legs and arms twitched slightly when she gave them a cautious pinch so his back couldn’t be broken. …Maybe. That was how it worked, right? 

“Are you alright?” 

Marinette stared down at the cat-boy, surprised. “I think I should be asking you that.” 

“…is that a yes or a no?” 

Marinette eyed him, but finally sat back a bit and checked herself over again while her shadow watched with wide, worried, eyes. “I’m okay. Bit bruised? But… I’m okay. …Are you okay?” 

He shifted, slowly testing everything. He hissed when he moved his right arm, but finally offered a nod. “I’ll be alright. Gonna be stiff from the bruises but… nothing’s broken. That…” his gaze drifted towards the top tier of the Sports Management School, and from there towards the Coeur Défense. “Sorry. Didn’t think it through. I was planning on holding on and going with you when you pulled the yoyo. I…” he shrugged his left shoulder. “You’re the brains of our team, Ladybug, I’m just the **mouse** le. …As evidenced by me essentially throwing you across the city.” 

Marinette blinked. “Was that a PUN?” 

He blinked at her, eyes slowly going wide again. “I… uh. Umm. …yes?” 

“…You pun.” 

“…yes?” 

“YOU. Pun.” 

“…I’m sorry?” 

Marinette sighed. Of course he punned. 

The cat-boy sat up slowly with another groan, then slowly got to his feet, limping towards the far side of the tier, pulling his baton off his back. He hit the central pawpad of the green pawprint that adorned it with his thumb and half of the baton slid down like an old fashioned cell phone, exposing a screen at the top. He held it up and used his fingers to zoom with the screen. Marinette couldn’t help herself and got to her feet, walking over to cautiously peek over his shoulder. 

He’d zoomed in on the Grande Arche, and it looked like Mnemosyne was, slowly, heading their way. 

“At least she’s slow in the air,” he sighed. He zoomed out a bit. “I… THINK that she doesn’t know where we are exactly, only roughly what direction you… we… went off in.” 

“So we… have time?” 

He shifted to look over his shoulder at her, blinking green cat eyes. “Yes? Time for what?” 

“Time for you to explain…” Marinette waved her arms. At the distant Mnemosyne, at the leather-clad cat-boy, at herself, at this WHOLE MESS. “What is GOING ON?” 

“Oh.” He looked to the image in his baton, frowning. “Well, can we head somewhere a little bit less exposed first?” 

Marinette looked around and took in where they were. Only five stories off the ground, no places to run or hide… “Oh! …Yeah, that’s a good idea.” 

A tap of his thumb and the baton slid closed again. He headed over to the far side of the building and extended his baton, then offered his right hand to Marinette. She started to take it, then remembered that he was hurt and just reached over and wrapped her arms around his chest. 

She felt him jump, as if surprised, but then his arm wrapped around her and he stepped off the building. The baton shrank, and a moment later they were on the street. 

He set off at a sprint, and Marinette kept pace, dodging the pedestrians on the sidewalk. A few seconds later and they were at Tour Neptune. The cat-boy took his baton and set it on the sidewalk, then offered Marinette his hand again. She shook her head and wrapped her arms around his chest again. “You know, I do know that your arm is hurt.” 

“Oh. Uh, thank you?” He shifted the grip of his left hand, and the baton extended, and soon they were stepping off onto the top of the Tour Neptune building. 

“So this… is less exposed?” There wasn’t… ANYTHING up here. 

“It’s much higher up, we’ve got space to fight if we need to, and I can pole vault us away more easily. So… less a case of ‘less exposed’ and more a case of ‘better’?” Another one shouldered shrug. He tapped his baton, having it slide open to expose the screen again and fiddled with it until he could see Mnemosyne. He sat down on an air conditioning unit and looked up at Marinette, letting her decide what to do. 

Marinette hesitated, then finally crept over and sat down, hugging her legs to her chest. 

“I’m… not really sure how to explain all of this. There’s so much. It started on the first day of the school year. I don’t know what it was like for you… but I can tell you what it was like for me? And fill you in on… the basics? Of what’s happened since then?” 

Marinette nodded. “That sounds like a good idea, ca…” she trailed off. 

She’d almost called him cat-boy. He’d saved her at least three times today and while he was… really, **really** scary, he hadn’t tried to hurt her and he seemed really serious about the ‘I only want to protect you’ thing and she’d almost called him ‘cat-boy’. 

“…What’s your name?” 

He blinked, then got to his feet and swept into a bow that ended with him on bent knee before her. “I am called Chat Noir, my Lady. Always and forever at your service.” 

Marinette couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her, and Chat Noir glanced up at her through the fringe of his blond hair at the sound, smiling. He got back to his feet and sat down beside her, and looked at his baton again to check on the still distant Mnemosyne. 

“So. Allow me to tell you tales of Miraculous Stones and Akumas, of Black Cats and Ladybugs, and of the Papillon and Battles. I swear to you, my Lady, that these tales be true… and that they are miraculous.” 

Marinette sat, chin on her knees, and listened as Chat Noir told her of their first two days wielding the Miraculous Stones, of the threat that Papillon had made, of the battles that she and he had almost daily (and sometimes more than once a day) against Akumatized supervillains. Of HOW the Akumas seemed to work, and how they had to figure out what the Akumatized item was, destroy it, and how vital it was to capture and purify the Akuma. 

And all the while, Mnemosyne slowly came closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly don’t feel guilty about having Marinette flail and fail a bit at the start of this chapter because it is EXACTLY what she managed to do her first time using her yoyo in Origins ( _hook distant building, accidental tug, flying over and past building, managing to accidently unhook and retract the yoyo and then just keep going. …and then the **Chat** landing ^_=_)
> 
> So it is DEFINITELY something that is in character for Mari’s first attempt at using her yoyo for parkouring. ^_^ 
> 
> ~~~~~~
> 
> Chat is basically taking a calculated risk here ( _and while he’s NOT a strategist like Marinette, the boy IS very good at math ^_=_ ). He knows that Mnemosyne is very slow in the air, so it’ll take her a long time to get to them ( _basically back at the Seine_ ), he’s fairly certain that her beam can’t hit them from this far away, and he knows that she only knows ROUGHLY where they went. He’s hoping that by keeping an eye on her and choosing a place where they CAN fight if need be, he’ll have time to fill Ladybug/Marinette in on what the situation is… because the mess DOES take a lot of explaining and there’s a huge chunk of vital- NEED TO KNOW- information in there. 
> 
> ~~~~~~ 
> 
> He’s also figured out ( _admittedly it IS very obvious_ ) that Ladybug is currently afraid of him, so he’s defaulted to being as polite and formal as possible to try and put her at ease
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> How is it that I’m A: not that good at writing battles and B: don’t LIKE writing battles and I still ended up with a fic that is like 81% fighting battles?!
> 
> AND IT’S STILL NOT DONE!! ;_;
> 
> **  
> **  
> _SAAAAVE MEEEEeeeeEEEEEeeeEEEE!!! *sob*_  
>  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
>  
> 
> Also! I have a second beta reader (WOW!! ^_^) Say hello to Nike! ^_^


	16. Chapter 16

“Okay, so… I spin it and just… want it to be a shield?”

Chat Noir nodded, half of his attention on the screen on his baton, the other half on the now visible green dot that was the steadily approaching Mnemosyne as Marinette experimented with spinning her yoyo into a translucent red shield. 

“It’ll block the beams and most small projectiles… which with Mnemosyne is just anything small she throws our way. …Best if you dodge anything as big as you or larger. She likes trying to hit people with her beam after throwing something, so come up spinning.” 

Marinette stopped the yoyo and then started spinning it again, ducking down to sit on her heels and cautiously raising the ‘shield’ above her head and then to the sides, getting a feel for the space she needed and her range of coverage. “Got it. And… how do I purify the Akuma?” 

Chat didn’t answer, frowning at his baton’s screen before closing it sharply. “She’s spotted us.” He looked around, frowning. “We could fight her here but… I don’t know. What do you think, Ladybug?” 

“You’re asking me?” Darn it, she’d hoped they’d have more time. She only knew the basics of how to use her yoyo at the moment ( _and Chat Noir had been incredibly patient about letting her lasso him several times… only half of them on purpose. And patient about how many times he’d gotten smacked in the chest, yanked off his feet, and bonked on the head by the yoyo as well. They both were reasonably certain that there wouldn’t be another repeat of the accidental kilometers long flight and crash-landing at least_ ). 

Chat blinked at her. “Of course. Our first day, you were the one to come up with the strategy. Yeah, right now I’ve got more experience and can give you advice for any gaps, but I’ll still follow where you lead.” 

…okay then. Marinette nibbled on her lip and looked around. The roof was big and open, and there wasn’t really anything Mnemosyne could chuck at them… but Marinette didn’t like the idea of fighting up here, and she didn’t think Chat Noir did either, despite leading them here. It felt more like this was the best option he could think of in the few seconds of time he’d had. She honestly wanted more time, and more places to run. “What’s around us?” 

“Residential across the Seine and to the south. Business district to the west but that… really didn’t work out for us.” He looked north. “The Municipale area would be good, I think. Fewer civilians, good roofs for running and places to maneuver and for cover. …More cars and stuff for her to chuck at us though.” He looked to Marinette. 

Marinette nodded. “Municipale sounds good.” 

Chat put his baton on the roof top. “You need to keep one hand free so you can use your yoyo to block any beams Mnemosyne sends our way…” he glanced to the west. “She’s probably almost in range.” 

Marinette nodded and slung her left arm over his shoulders as he wrapped his right arm around her waist. The baton began to extend and Chat Noir hiked his legs up to grip the baton with his feet, and Marinette braced her feet against his and shifted her weight until she felt balanced, staring towards the distant green speck that was Mnemosyne… waiting and watching for one of the gold beams. 

Chat had all of his attention on keeping them balanced and judging their height, silently putting all of his trust in Marinette to guard them from- 

Marinette jerked forward and spun her yoyo, and Mnemosyne’s beam shattered into a sunburst. Chat adjusted without a word so she had better ‘footing’, and so that while they swayed at the top of the baton, they managed to stay balanced. “Few more meters, Ladybug.” 

“Okay.” She could do this. She could DO THIS. 

They continued the slow climb, Marinette blocking Mnemosyne’s attack and keeping a careful eye on how close the supervillain was getting… Chat Noir keeping them balanced and high enough to get to the Municipale area. 

“Annnnnnnd here we go!” 

It wasn’t until he’d tipped them forward and they’d STARTED the extreme pole vault that WHAT, exactly, they were doing finally occurred to Marinette. 

“Wait! WaitWaitWait! How do we not die when we land!?” 

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” Chat Noir said softly in her ear as his baton suddenly retracted and he clipped it onto his belt, pulling her closer with his left arm as the rooftops of the Municipale grew larger and larger as they raced down. He was keeping watch over his shoulder, only keeping half an eye on the fast approaching roofs… and he sharply shifted his weight, sending them into a brief spin, dodging one of Mnemosyne’s beams. “Just go loose, Ladybug.” 

They landed, and Chat sent them into a rolling tumble. They came up on their feet as lightly as if they’d just jumped off a fence railing instead of having fallen from well over 200 stories in the air. Chat taking off running along the rooftops, and Marinette followed as they raced east. Getting away from where they’d landed so Mnemosyne wouldn’t have a direct shot at where they’d been, Marinette figured. 

A theory that was confirmed when a golden beam hit where they’d landed. 

Marinette followed the path of the beam, and could see Mnemosyne in the air, drawing steadily closer. Well… now it was time to see if the very vague plan of ‘run away until one of us thinks of something’ would work!! 

She looked forward and squeaked, trying to pull up short when she saw that they were coming to the end of the rooftop, a yawning gap between this building and the next… Chat’s left hand darted out and caught her right hand and he pulled her with him as they LEAPT- 

And they landed on the roof across the street. 

Marinette blinked and looked back at the gap, then looked to Chat Noir. Her Shadow smiled at her and the top of his black mask rose, following the eyebrows they covered. Marinette found herself smiling back, and the two took off running across the rooftops of Paris.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Okay… I’ve pretty much decided to switch from ‘ **Miraculous Ladybug** ’ for the name of the Reset ability to either ‘ **Miraculous Restoration** ’ or the Korean ‘ **Miraculous Healing Light** ’ because it gets really ANNOYING and rather CONFUSING when I have characters talk about the Reset as to which one I’m referring to as ‘ **Miraculous Ladybug** ’… the ability or the person.~~
> 
> ~~BUT… if there are enough people who don’t want the switch ( _And give me reasons for it, even if the reason is just ‘it sounds silly to me’_ ) I won’t make the change. I don’t want to annoy a lot of people, even if it’s to ‘fix’ something that currently bugs me to High Heaven and back.~~
> 
> ~~Please let me know in the comments which one you think I should use, **Healing Light** or **Restoration** ^_^ ( _I’m currently leaning towards ‘Miraculous Restoration’ despite it not having any canonicity_ )~~
> 
> As I'm about to put the new chapter up/have put the chapter up I'm not going to be counting any further votes for the Reset name change.   
> Thank you all for voting! ^_^


	17. Chapter 17

Marinette ran over the rooftops, her Shadow half a stride behind her. She’d stumbled a bit, caught her foot on a gutter here, failed to clear a chimney there, and overshot a roof once or twice but…

It was amazing. 

She found herself hoping that they could defeat Mnemosyne as soon as possible so that there would still be enough daylight to maybe just… run for a while. 

A hand touched her shoulder and Marinette swerved to the left, neatly dodging the car that Mnemosyne had chucked their way. She darted back to run alongside Chat Noir, her yoyo in her hand and ready to shield herself and her Shadow. 

“Okay, I THINK I have an idea, LB… or at least, I think YOU did before Mnemosyne caught you,” Chat said as they leapt over a street and then made a sharp turn to the west… putting Mnemosyne to their left instead of behind them. 

“How do you mean?” 

“Just before I had to head off, when you got hit by the beam, one of Mnemosyne’s beams reflected off a window and almost caught us. …You said that you thought you knew how to defeat her right after, so-” Chat suddenly snarled and brought his baton around, smashing a motorcycle that had threatened to strike Marinette out of the air. Marinette snapped her yoyo up and spun it into a shield, and the beam Mnemosyne had tried to catch Chat Noir with broke into the now familiar sunburst. 

Marinette watched as Mnemosyne fell back sharply, as she always did. Her eyes widened and she looked to Chat Noir. “You think that she isn’t immune to her own beams.” 

Chat’s lips quirked into a smirk, although all of his attention was on Mnemosyne. “Well, it’s the only thing I can think of that makes sense from what you’d said.” 

Marinette nodded and looked around, trusting Chat to protect her from Mnemosyne. Okay so… they needed an area with a reflective surface… a window or a mirror? …and it’d be best if it was only the ONE reflective object so they didn’t risk unexpected angles… 

There was a loud crunch, and two flares of light behind her, but Marinette ignored it, eyes darting everywhere as she looked for Just. The Right. SPOT… 

“THERE!!” 

An arm snaked around her waist and Marinette yelped as she was yanked off her feet and slung onto a black armored back. Marinette wrapped her legs around Chat’s waist and one arm around his shoulders, trying not to jar his injured arm, keeping the hand with her yoyo free. It was easier than trying to wiggle free and Chat was… less clumsy… than she was in the slowly lengthening shadows. 

“Go that way!” 

“Which way is that way?!” 

…Oh, yeah, pointing would probably help. 

“LEFT! Go left!” 

Chat cut to the left and Marinette glanced over her shoulder, giggling when she saw the pole-axed look on Mnemosyne’s face. 

Apparently heroic piggy-back-rides were not in the superhero-supervillain game-play script. 

“Okay, so where-” 

“See that big picture window up ahead? The sun’s reflecting in it so it’s probably got UV protection so it’ll be a really good mirror… No other windows near it or they’re all well below it so we-” 

“We don’t have to worry about unexpected reflections! Ladybug, you are a genius! Hold tight, we’ll be there in a second!” 

Marinette felt her cheeks and ears burn in an unexpected blush at the utter… DELIGHT… in Chat Noir’s voice and she tightened her grip carefully, burying her face against his shoulder for a second. 

Reaching the rooftop in front of the window, Chat Noir let Marinette slide off his back to stand and walked a few meters away, so that the picture window was in-between them. 

“Now… remember… don’t use your special power – that’s Lucky Charm. That’ll drain your Miraculous’ power and you’ll have five minutes before you de-transform and… right now you don’t know what your Kwami will need to recharge, the Kwamis look a little… startling… if you aren’t used to them and… buncha other stuff like you’d need to get away then come back to the fight.” 

“No Lucky Charm, got it,” Marinette said, starting to spin her yoyo. “So we’re gonna have to try to make sure she doesn’t destroy the window with a car or something and just… try to get the beam to reflect into her. Even if she is immune to the memory effects, it should blind her and might shock her.” 

“Which means we’ll be able to get the oil lamp,” Chat finished the thought and nodded, then smirked at Mnemosyne as the supervillain slowly, cautiously, approached. “So it’s going to be just like how we handled Mesmerize then?” 

“Who?” 

“Few months ago. Eyeball beams that memorized people, you had me- …you don’t remember, right. …Just... trust me, okay? I know EXACTLY what to do now.” 

Marinette settled deeper into what she hoped was a fighting stance. This was probably going to be a long, hard fight, but she could DO this. All she had to do was… trust… her… Shad… ow… 

Marinette’s thoughts trailed off and tumbled into a confused mess as Chat dropped out of his combat stance and strolled a bit closer to her, twirling his baton with his left hand, letting it slowly extend to staff length while he twirled it, smiling up at Mnemosyne. 

…What was he doing? 

“You know, I must say that you’ve given us a most **meow** velous and event **fur** day, Mnemosyne… Or should I be thanking you, Papil **lion** , for this wonder **fur** afternoon?” 

Still smiling, Chat Noir stopped twirling his staff and planted it on the rooftop and actually relaxed even further, casually leaning all of his weight on it as he crossed his legs. “Please do tell me how I can repay you **fur** such a lo **fur** ly stroll across the city… Mayhaps a **picinic** basket? Or **purr** haps a day at the beach?” 

Marinette.exe crashed. 

She stared blankly at the punning, black clad, cat-boy; jaw working as she tried to form WORDS to demand What He Was Even DOING. 

A lack of movement to her left made her look over… to find that Mnemosyne was staring at Chat Noir with the EXACT same expression as Marinette… The Akumatized supervillain slowly looked from the nonchalant Chat Noir to Marinette… and pointed at Chat Noir with the hand holding the chalice while giving Marinette a look that DEMANDED an explanation. 

Marinette could only shrug helplessly, as flabbergasted as Mnemosyne. 

The butterfly mask, what Chat had called ‘The Mark of Papillon’, suddenly flared to life before Mnemosyne’s face and she looked back to Chat Noir. 

“Ah. So nice of you to finally join us, Papil **lion**. How’s about you call it a day and let Mnemosyne go? That way you won’t have to deal with the utt **purr** embarrassment of what my Lady and I are about to dish out on you, kay?” Chat Noir said, his eyes hooded and his smile smug, like the cat that had just caught the canary. 

Her Shadow was broken. What was he DOING?! What was she supposed to do when her Shadow was broken!? 

Mnemosyne gestured with her oil lamp, her expression twisting into one of pure rage. The beam raced across the distance to where Chat Noir stood- 

Chat Noir’s smile deepened, and his staff retracted and her wonderful, scary, CLEVER Shadow let himself DROP to the ground in a tumbling roll as the beam went through the space where he HAD BEEN- 

To hit the window he’d positioned himself in front of, reflecting it right back at the supervillain. 

Mnemosyne’s eyes went wide, the golden glow of her beam and the purple glow of the Mark of Papillon both reflecting in her eyes as she offered a faint ‘Oh’ in the split second that she had before impact. 

The beam sent Mnemosyne crashing back into the wall of the building across the way, and from there she fell to the street below even as Chat Noir came out of his tumble to land lightly on his feet. Marinette swung with her yoyo and lassoed the oil lamp, and a tug later it was in hand as Chat Noir walked over to stand beside her. 

Marinette laughed in delight and threw her arms around Chat Noir. “That was brilliant! How did you know to do that?!” and then her eyes went wide and she grabbed his shoulders and SHOOK him as hard as she could. “Never mind, NEVER DO THAT AGAIN, you scared me to death!! WHAT IF SHE HADN’T MISSED?!” 

“Sorry, sorry…that's how we dealt with Memorize… please let go of my shoulder, Ladybug, I… that… it really hurts, I-” 

Shoot. Shoot shoot shoot! She just… hadn’t thought. Keeping the oil lamp in one hand, she steadied the now chalk white Chat Noir, worried at how it seemed like his knees couldn’t hold up his weight, how glazed his eyes were. How badly had she hurt his arm that he looked ready to faint?! Marinette risked taking her eyes off the weaving-where-he-stood Chat Noir to glance down at Mnemosyne… 

The woman was moving, looking around as if confused… or looking for her oil lamp. 

Marinette got Chat Noir sitting with his knees raised, his right arm cradled on his lap, making him lean forward to put his head between his knees, then she dropped the oil lamp to the roof and STOMPED on it as hard as she could. 

A green butterfly, its wings made up of dozens of translucent layers and its abdomen glowing like that of a firefly, peeled its way out of the metal and began to flutter away… and Marinette scrabbled at her yoyo because WHAT WAS SHE SUPPOSED TO D- 

Oh. 

It was like muscle memory… or maybe more like déjà vu… 

Marinette knew exactly what to do, and she knew she had to do it fast, before the Akuma got away. She ran the index finger of her right hand over the top of her yoyo, and the top opened like ladybug elytra, revealing a shining white light within. 

She let the yoyo drop and sway near her feet before she whirled it once, twice, THRICE- 

And she threw the yoyo, letting it arc out, snatching up the fleeing butterfly. The ‘elytra’ cover re-materialized and snapped closed around the butterfly and the light, and Marinette gave the string a tug, smirking as the yoyo retracted back smoothly into her palm. “Gotcha.” 

A tap to the central black dot and the yoyo opened again, and the butterfly, now white instead of green, fluttered away. “Bye-bye, little butterfly…” She said, watching as the butterfly flew away, almost immediately losing track of it in the darkening sky 

On the street below, Mnemosyne was engulfed in roiling black and purple motes… and when it cleared a normal looking woman, much older than Mnemosyne had been, her hair gray and her face wrinkled, was sitting on the street, looking around her in confusion. Dark motes also engulfed the gold oil lamp by Marinette’s feet, and it turned into a hand sized red hurricane lamp. 

Marinette sighed in relief and turned back to on Chat Noir, kneeling down beside him. He hissed, going white again, when she cautiously tried to move his arm to check it… but reached out and caught her wrist with his left hand when she started to pull away. 

“No. Sorry… I’m sorry. It’ll be alright. Just- hurts, but it’s fading.” 

Marinette cautiously sat next to him giving him a small tug so that he was leaning against her, right shoulder supported against her, sliding her arm around to support his right arm. 

He jumped slightly at that, but then relaxed, eyes closing as she ran her fingers through his hair. They sat there for a few minutes, and Marinette smiled, somehow not surprised, when Chat Noir began to purr. She remembered from an old cat her dad had found on the doorstep when she had been five that cat’s purred for pleasure… and for pain. Papa had explained that purring made cats feel better, that the vibrations even helped in healing bone and muscle, as she’d sat in the car with the injured calico on her lap as he drove to the Vet. 

She still missed that cat… But Callie had been old before the Dupain-Cheng’s had taken her in. While they’d all been sad, no one had been surprised when Callie had passed away when Marinette was twelve… 

She looked down at the cat that was leaning against her and cautiously scratched behind the leather cat-ears, smiling as the purr deepened and her Shadow relaxed completely, sprawling against her. He was so much bigger than a real cat… and his purr was correspondingly louder. She closed her eyes and kept running her hand through his hair, feeling everything in her get… shaken softly as she relaxed. 

“We can stay here for a bit, I took care of the Akuma,” Marinette said when the purr faded to a stop and Chat Noir seemed to wake out of the almost-doze he’d been in. She wondered how long it had been. 

It had been a while at least, since now it was actually sunset. 

“You did? …Good. That’s good. …You’re **claw** some, did you know that?” 

Marinette breathed a huge sigh of relief at the pun. 

“Well. That was an interesting day, my Lady.” 

Marinette glanced to her right, meeting Chat Noir’s cautious smile with one of her own. “Yeah, it was. …It was kinda fun though.” 

Chat offered a huge smile. “Yeah?” 

Marinette nodded. “Yeah.” She looked at the setting sun, then glanced at Chat Noir out of the corner of her eye, and reached up to start skritching behind his cat ears again, smiling as the purr started up again. “Hey. Um, can I ask you something?” 

“Anything and everything you wish to ask, my Lady,” Chat Noir mumbled, eyes closed as he purred, reveling in the attention Marinette was giving him. 

“…Are we anime ‘magic girls’?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  As mentioned in the opening notes of each fic, and in more detail in [Chapter 1 of my series bible](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8189071/chapters/25892577), in my fanfic 'verse an Akuma takes on a unique apperance after a Champion accepts Papillon's deal, thus each akuma that flees from a broken Talisman looks different for each Champion, and is reverted to the normal white butterfly after Ladybug 'purifies' them.  
> ~~~~~~
> 
> Annnd the votes are in… ‘Miraculous Restoration’ is the winner ( _by an unexpected landslide. Sorry, Nike_ ).  
> Final results were 8 for Restoration and 1 for Healing Light and 1 for it remaining Ladybug.
> 
> So I will be going back and changing it both in the earlier chapters of this fic, and in Madame Mort’. Thanks to everyone who voted!! ^_^  
> Also… So I was idly looking at the hit counter and going ‘wow, I may hit 3k by fics end!!’ …and then I hit 3k with the last chapter!! Just… WOW…


	18. Chapter 18

“Alright.” Chat Noir walked over, smiling gently. “Remember how I said that you had a… well, a reset button ability?”

Marinette nodded, and Chat Noir smiled and winked. 

“Good. Because now that we’ve sorted out the Akuma and gotten Mnemosyne back to herself and back to her nursing home and settled… it’s time to do that.” 

“Do we always have to find someplace up high to do this?” Marinette asked, looking around from where they stood atop the Grande Arche. “Or… is this close to the center of all the damage Mnemosyne caused? Or is it because this where it started? Did I have my memories locked away at the start of the fight? …I woke up here, so this IS where I lost my memories, right? Is that how this works?” 

Inhuman eyes widened, and Chat Noir started to open his mouth, then sighed, shaking his head. “No, my Lady. This can be done anywhere, and usually you do so where the battles end.” 

“Then why-?” 

“This is where Mnemosyne caught you when we initially fought her, yes. And that is why we came back here. You… won’t remember much of today, I thought it best that you would be somewhere less… jarring… when you recover your memories.” 

Marinette’s hands curled up around her yoyo. “I won’t remember?” 

Her Shadow shook his head. 

“…but what if I want to?” 

It had been- almost fun. Chat Noir had been kind and patient despite how she’d hurt him, and how scared, how clumsy and how… how MARINETTE she’d been. Once she’d gotten the hang of it, running over rooftops had been amazing, and even the fighting had been fun in some weird, fierce, way. 

“Sadly, my Lady; that is the way of it. Believe me, I know how it is to wish to… remember… but-” the armor clad superhero broke off, then sat down on the edge of the roof and patted a spot beside him. 

Marinette walked over and sat down. They were quiet for a few minutes, Marinette swinging her legs and lightly drumming her heels against the wall of the building while Chat Noir laid down on his back, hands curled up on his stomach and eyes closed. Hiding the parts of him that had scared her when they first met, still trying to make himself less threatening for her. 

“I’ve had this happen a few times now. You’ll be confused and off balance, but you’ll get your bearings pretty fast …and at least you won’t have to find out that you did anything you… regret.” 

Marinette pulled her legs up and hugged them to her chest, resting her cheek on her knees as she stared down at her Shadow. “…Do you want to talk about it?” 

Chat Noir sighed. “Yes. I want to talk about that… really, really badly. Want to talk about a lot of things, actually. …but that wouldn’t be fair to you.” He smiled. “You are my Lady, but I’d be talking about things you don’t know, and this…. This would be tricking you into talking about a lot of things you always avoid… and I think maybe talking about some things would stray too close to lying right now.” The smile flashed again. “And ‘liars are losers’, I believe is your stance on such matters.” 

Marinette giggled. Well, at least she knew that she had SOME things in common with her year-older self. 

“So…” Marinette fussed with the yoyo, looking up at Chat Noir through her lashes. “Because I- because this person stole my memories…” 

“People who fall under the control of the Akumatized don’t retain their memories anymore then the Akumatized themselves do.” Green eyes opened, slit-pupils dilating and then contracting as they adjusted to the light. “I’m not sure why. I don’t think it has anything to do with the… the ‘reset button’, because I’ve never seen THAT do anything, positive or negative, to people’s minds or memories, and even when you haven’t used it, no one remembers their time possessed or controlled… Granted sometimes people that got controlled don’t… come out of it after the Akuma is purified, only when you use the ‘reset’, which is what looks to be the case this time. Maybe they would, given time… Not something I’d want to test though. I think it’s just… how the Akumas’ work. …maybe they shut down the hippocampus upon possession or control?” 

Marinette reached over and tapped the golden bell on Chat Noir’s neck, smiling at the soft chime. “…Hippos camping?” 

That startled a laugh out of Chat Noir. “I sometimes forget that what I learned from home-schooling was a bit… different then what is the norm for people my age- our age I guess- in collège. The hippocampus is the part of the brain that lets you remember things. Like a computer? It’s the part that takes read-only and transfers it to the hard-drive, basically. If Akumas basically turn it off… that would explain the memory gaps.” 

He frowned, staring up at the sky. Marinette let him ramble, smiling at how the big, black clad, scary cat was now so… normal and not scary and actually really cute. She wondered if he went off on tangents like this normally or if this was… for her? He’d taken time whenever he could to explain what was going on and why tonight. Losing her memories was… terrifying, and the idea that even as she got her ‘normal’ memories back she’d still lose some no matter what had her chest painfully tight and her heart hammering. 

“Or… well, you can remember things WHILE you’re possessed or controlled, like what you’re doing and stuff, there’s no short-term memory loss THEN so… maybe the Akuma acts like a temporary hard-drive? Where it records the memories instead of your brain? Kinda sorta. …They definitely impact impulse control and emotions like WOW, so I guess it’d make sense that other parts would be influenced or whatever… And even though you purify the Akuma it is still THERE, I mean we watch it fly away, so maybe that’s why people don’t snap out of the control until you reset things, because the Akuma is still THERE so it’s still acting as a temporary hard-drive?” 

“I guess that makes sense,” Marinette said. She reached over and tapped the bell again, which earned her a soft chuckle. “Don’t forget to tell me this again when I’m… when I’m Ladybug.” 

“You are Ladybug now.” 

“No, I’m not.” 

Chat Noir sat up, eyes kind and smile gentle. “You are. You did amazing today. I’m sure your Kwami will tell you the same once you’re home and safe.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “If you’ve ever doubted your abilities… I have a year more experience than you right now, and you kept pace without a hiccup.” 

Marinette stared down at the roof, and thought of how often her shadow had protected her today, of thrown debris and weapons and CARS that had never touched her because there’d been black armor between it and her. Of being nabbed and pulled out of the way of a blow. A spinning silver shield between her and magic beams. “No lies.” 

A sigh. “No lies, Ladybug. I don’t lie to you. I never have, and I never will.” Gentle fingers under her chin, making her look up into inhuman green eyes. Chat Noir smiled and reached over with his other hand to brush away her tears. “You did great. No hiccups. I know you don’t remember, but I ALWAYS protect you. You need more space and time for your yoyo then I do for my baton or claws, my armor is tougher even though it slows me down a bit. You… You are the important one. You can fix things, make everything how it was… even bring back those lost. I can’t. You, Lady Luck, are creation. I am destruction. If I fall, you can bring me back to your side. If you are lost…” green eyes were haunted and he brushed her face again, pretending to wipe away tears that were no longer there. “I am your shield. I am your sword.” He ducked so that he could look up at her, smiling. “Okay?” 

Marinette nodded. Chat Noir got to his feet and offered her his left hand. This time she didn’t hesitate, didn’t stare at his claws or shy away from him. He helped her to her feet and led her to the center of the roof. “Now. Close your eyes and tell me if you can feel, or see, how to do Lucky Charm.” 

Marinette closed her eyes and breathed out slowly, feeling for the ‘instructions’. How to capture and cleanse the Akuma had been there, quietly THERE, as if it had always been there when she’d needed it during the fight. This… should be the same right? 

It was. 

Smiling, Marinette threw her yoyo straight up into the air. “Lucky Charm!” The yoyo paused at the peak of her throw and spun madly, throwing off sparks of light as glowing ladybugs gathered and then scattered around the light…. 

And a large mirror dropped down into her hands. Marinette blinked at it, and in the mirror Ladybug blinked back. 

Chat Noir chuckled. “Well, that would have made the whole ‘get Mnemosyne’s beams reflect back on herself’ thing easier.” 

“Okay. Now what do I do?” 

“Now it’s time for the ‘reset button’, and if you knew how to summon Lucky Charm, then you’ll know how to do this.” Chat Noir chuckled. “It’s really easy to do.” 

Marinette started to close her eyes, then paused and giggled as the instructions came to the front of her mind in an easy sweep. “It… it’s really that simple?” 

Chat Noir smiled and nodded. 

“Miraculous Restoration!” Marinette tossed the mirror up into the air, watching it rise impossibly high and then- 

“I’m Adrien Agreste, and I love you.” 

Marinette’s eyes snapped back to Chat Noir as up above there was a burst of bright light as… something happened, she didn’t know what because right now- 

She stared, eyes wide, at Chat Noir. Behind and beyond, flights of glowing ladybugs swirled and swooped, repairing the damage that had been done. He stepped closer, closing the distance between them, and he leaned forward and gently brushed his lips against her forehead before meeting her eyes. 

“You said I wouldn’t remember this,” Marinette whispered. “Why-“ 

“Because I have to say it, just once. And… kinda because you won’t remember it. You don’t want to know who I am, but I want you to know and this seems like… the only way I can ever tell you without losing you.” His smile slipped at her confused expression. “…you don’t know who ‘Adrien’ is, do you?” Marinette shook her head. “Just my luck.” Chat glanced up, then around, taking in the swirling flights of glowing ladybugs, then returned his attention to Marinette. 

“I love your strengths, and your flaws, and the way you scrunch up your nose when you’re thinking, how crazy intense and focused you get, and even that scary little smile you get when you get A Plan and I really wish I knew who you were under the mask because I’d like to love that part of you too.” He reached up a hand and brushed her bangs back for a moment, his eyes never leaving hers. “And… it’s okay that you don’t love me. Honest.” 

“It… I… but you-” How could loving someone and thinking- knowing?- that they didn’t love you back be okay?! 

“It is okay. I never lie to you, remember? I love you. I will always love y-” 

Marinette was wrapped in a glowing swarm of ladybugs. Their wings seemed to brush THOUGH her rather than against her, and it tickled, and she closed her eyes against the glow for just a moment- 

Ladybug opened her eyes, feeling the brush of thousands of tiny wings as a column of glowing ladybugs withdrew and flew away, fading from reality as they went… leaving her standing on a roof, with a very worried looking Chat Noir standing FAR too close… and a very distinct lack of supervillain. …and why was it night time?! 

“What- what happened?!” she demanded, spinning around as she tried to figure out what, where, why- 

“Easy, easy…” Chat caught her shoulders and smiled at her. “Mnemosyne caught you with her beam, remember?” 

Ladybug stared at Chat, grabbing his wrists as she tried to ground herself, eyes wide as realization kicked in. “What… what did I do while she-“ 

“What? …No! NoNoNo, she didn’t control you. It’s okay. She wasn’t like Puppeteer or… any of them. She just… locked your memories away, she didn’t get control of you after it.” 

“How… how much did I-” Ladybug’s knees felt weak as she remembered a brief argument on a rooftop after Chat had protected her from the first beam. “…The beam took a year from the men she hit. That… would have been before I was Ladybug. I wouldn’t know that I was supposed to keep anything a secret, what did I-?!” 

Chat shook his head, smiling. “Don’t worry, you didn’t let who you are under the mask slip, I made sure you didn’t.” 

Oh look, her heart could beat again. 

Chat tilted his head, still smiling. “You did really good, My Lady, even if it was basically your first night on the job again. We stopped Mnemosyne, purified the Akuma, and you only ran away screaming from me a few times!” 

THAT sent Ladybug spiraling out of her panic and into total confusion faster than she’d have thought possible. She leaned back, staring at Chat Noir. “I did WHAT?” 

Because Chat Noir? Her goofy, playful, punning, showboating, kind-hearted CHAT? She’d run away from her partner? “…Don’t lie to me.” 

“I never lie to you, Bugaboo.” 

“You aren’t scary, Chat, why would I have run from you?” 

Chat pouted at her, shoulders slumping dramatically as he batted his eyes at her and let go of her shoulders to clasp his hands in front of his heart. “My Lady, you wound me! I’m terrifying!” 

Ladybug burst out laughing and shoved her partner’s shoulder. “You, Kitty, are not scary in any way, shape, or form.” 

Chat laughed at that, dropping the act to shrug at her. 

_BeepBeepBeepBeepBlip_

Ladybug’s hand flew up to check her Miraculous, gently running her fingertips over the earrings, feeling the subtle divets of the spots. 

Four spots left. 

Chat stepped back and bowed grandly. “But it seems our time today is at an end, my Lady. I’ll see you the day after next for patrol?” 

Ladybug smiled and nodded. “Sounds like a plan, Chat.” Turning she lassoed a distant building- 

Then paused and looked over her shoulder. “Thank you. For keeping me safe.” 

“Always.” 

A tug and she was off, flying through the air and homeward bound. 

It wasn’t until she’d gotten home, de-transformed, been filled in on what Tikki said were the basics of the day and tucked herself into bed that she realized she had forgotten to shake Chat Noir for the scare he’d given her with Madame Mort. 

Well. 

…Maybe she’d let him get away without the shaking. Just this one time. 

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

> **Notes** ( _I ALMOST managed to get the notes short enough!!!_ ):  
>  …But I didn’t actually MANAGE it :/ … mostly due to the html for the table… 
> 
> for my headcanon (And thus canon for this series), I have Volpina take place during the Third Trimester (May 23rd). This is thus taking place shortly after Spring Holiday.  
>  Jackaday took place Sunday May 11th, Madame Mort took place the evening of May 15th, and finished the morning of the 16th. The battle in Mnemosyne took place Saturday the 17th. 
> 
> **MAY 2014**  
>   
> ---  
>   
> **SUN**
> 
> | 
> 
> **MON**
> 
> | 
> 
> **TUE**
> 
> | 
> 
> **WED**
> 
> | 
> 
> **THU**
> 
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> **FRI**
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> **SAT**  
>   
> ~~Spring  
>  Break~~
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> ~~Spring  
>  Break~~
> 
> | 
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> ~~Spring  
>  Break~~
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> ~~Spring  
>  Break~~
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> 1  
>  ~~Spring  
>  Break~~
> 
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> 2  
>  ~~Spring  
>  Break~~
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> 3  
>  ~~Spring  
>  Break~~  
>   
> 4  
>  ~~Spring~~  
>  ~~Break~~  
>    
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> 5  
>  First Day-  
>  3rd Trimester  
>  **_Non-Akuma Copter rescue_**
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>  **_Non-Akuma Cat rescue_**
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>  **_Jackady_**
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>  **_Madame Mort_**
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> 16  
>  **_Madame Mort/ Mnemosyne_**
> 
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> 17  
>  **_Mnemosyne_**  
>   
>   
> 18  
>  **_Jackady  
>  (end card)_**
> 
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> 19  
>  **_Sans Sheriff_**
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> 20  
>  **__**
> 
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> 21
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> 23  
>  **_Volpina_**
> 
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> 24  
>  **__**  
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> 25
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> 27
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> 31  
>   
>  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone… I have LOVED writing these fics so far, and the comments and discussions I’ve had so far are just… WOW. Okay? **_WOW_**. ^_^
> 
> I know that many of you are enjoying this as much as I am, so I’m just saying this again so no one worries… I’m currently tackling a 50,000 page editing job for a science journal in RL and it’s left me with only a few hours each week to write these fanfics… Now don’t worry. That doesn’t mean I’m stopping…
> 
> It just means that rather than a 2 day gap between **Mnemosyne** and **Sans Sheriff** like there was between **Madame Mort** and **Mnemosyne** , there will instead be a gap of about a week or so ( _2 weeks max_ ) 
> 
> While I know, roughly, what I need to set-up and cover in **Sans Sheriff** , I need to get an outline in order to actually get any work done ( _my autism messes with how I write and think… If I don’t have an outline/timeline I am SCREWED_ ) and I’d like to have a buffer of a chapter or two so things aren’t quite as hectic/to make it easier to get a new chapter out every other day.  
> (RL is crazy busy and WRETCHED. Huge editing job of 50k pages, 15 y/o dog had dizzy spell/vertigo that now requires meds and a 40 y/o casserole I inherited from my grandmother exploded in my face and I had to pull shards outta my foot, legs, torso and arms. Fortunately I have a suture kit, and also I reacted fast enough to get my arms up and protected my neck and head… Also thankfully the dogs LISTEN when I scream ‘DOWN STAY!’ and thus they were safe until I got the glass cleaned up. Unfortunatly there’s a piece of glass (or two) where I can’t get to it in the freaking HINGE of the oven so I need to find out how to remove an oven door to get the glass out. This weekend has been not so good) 
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> Oh, side note… You don’t have to worry that the security equipment recorded anything that was said on the roof. We’ve seen that places that SHOULD have recorded what the duo got up to DON’T ( _the metro for one, the freaking subway DRIVER CAB, many other places that SHOULD have recording equipment that obviously did not actually RECORD, even when they were civilians. So Chat said his real name knowing that the Glamour would keep any cameras from picking it up, just as it keeps cameras from recording the transformations and the like_ )
> 
> Oh and a line I REALLY wanted to use, is the reason the Akumatized villain HAD memory stealing abilities and never found a way to work in: “Deja oublier. Right now I’m having amnesia and déjà vu at the same time – I think I’ve forgotten this before.”


End file.
